Zoe was my labor and delivery nurse for the birth of my third daughter. This has been my third time giving birth at UH and the first time in the women's and children's tower. Zoe was an excellent nurse. She was on the day shift and with me until after delivery.

From the get-go, she was super professional in introducing herself and explaining what she was doing in my room each time she entered. You could tell how much care and pride she put into her job because she took the time to "set up" the room exactly the way she prefers it, making sure she had all the supplies on hand. I am a clinical pharmacy specialist at UH and value shared making. She included me in every decision, timing of epidural, Pitocin, positions, etc., at every step, and never made me feel pressured.

She was extremely timely coming to my room to check on me, reposition me into the optimal positions, and I could tell she was monitoring my contractions closely, even when she was outside of the room. I had pain control issues with a suboptimal epidural and subsequent hypotension, and she was very vigilant in paging anesthesia each time I was in pain or had low blood pressure.

Before inserting my line, I told her I was a hard stick. When she didn't see a vein right away, instead of putting me through multiple sticks like many nurses have done in the past, she went ahead and just paged vascular to place a US-guided line. The delivery went smoothly, but afterwards Zoe noticed my labor bed was broken, almost turning it into a chair.

She did not want me to be uncomfortable as I waited for a postpartum room, as they were backed up with discharges, so she went and found a postpartum bed to bring into the room and move me to. That bed was broken too, so she had to get another bed into the room. Zoe was extremely competent, compassionate, went above and beyond, calm, empathetic, and kind.