Our Angel Nurse

“You grieve the baby you thought, and you love the baby you were given. I came down to meet your beautiful baby.” These words were spoken to me by a nurse in the days after Jack was born. This nurse, Diane, changed the way I viewed Jack’s Down syndrome diagnosis. In celebration of National Nurses Week, I want to share more about how Diane helped change our story from the very beginning…

The day before Jack was born, after another night of off-and-on again contractions, I was ready for a pedicure to distract me from the pain that was coming.  My Mom and I met up with a friend, and I picked out the best OPI color, Pink Flamenco!  As my toes were drying, I started to feel the contractions coming on stronger. I paced the back of the salon and took some deep breaths. I had noticed a woman getting a manicure who kept looking over at me and smiling.  This is not unusual when you’re pregnant – a pregnant belly is a magnet for older women to smile and ask questions.  After meeting eyes with this woman, I told her I could not have this baby in the nail salon.  She said, “Actually, you could; I’m a labor and delivery nurse. Where are you delivering?” I responded with the name of the hospital, and she said she had just finished her shift there. She told me that if I were to have the baby this week (which she confirmed that I looked close at that point), that she would be there, and promised to look for my name on the list of patients. 

Jack was born later that night, and we learned of his Down syndrome diagnosis. The next day, we had the morning filled with a doctor’s visit, family visits, and the news of him having Down syndrome was settling in. Although we still didn’t have much information on his physical condition, Jack was still in the baby warmer in our room. 

Diane, the nurse from the nail salon, saw my name on the list and came down to visit our new baby boy.  She came in knowing that Jack had Down syndrome and said, “You grieve the baby you thought, and you love the baby you were given.  I came down to meet your beautiful baby.”  At that moment, looking over him in the warmer, Jack started choking and gagging for air. Diane immediately asked who our nurse was, told my husband, Chris, to push the call button, turned Jack downward, and started firmly patting his back. She then paged the NICU and said the word “STAT”. Jack was turning blue and a hue of purple. We stood there in silence as three people from the NICU ran into our room and tried to get Jack to breathe.

He was taken to the NICU for monitoring and to do some tests. They brought both Chris and me back to sit with him. I remember sitting in the rocking chair and thinking to myself, “I don’t want to be here.  I can’t do this”.  I said to Chris, “I just need to go lie down.  Are you okay if I go back to the room?”.  Again, Chris stayed with our baby and watched as they stuck tubes down his throat and did numerous tests on him.  When he came back, I could see in his body that he was broken. Tears streamed down his face.

After a couple of hours in the NICU, the Neonatologist came and talked to us about Jack’s abdominal scan. It was confirmed that everything was perfect, that he was choking on fluid from being in the womb and could not breathe.  His heart scans and tests came back normal, like a typical newborn, with no heart defects. It was explained to us that Jack was a healthy newborn…with an extra 21st chromosome.

Diane was not our nurse.  Diane had just come to say hello. Diane met me the day before because she saw I was in labor. I talked to her for 10 minutes, and now she had saved my baby’s life. This is not by chance, she was an angel.  Even now, 12 years later, I thank God that I met her in that nail salon. 

To every nurse who cares for a baby with Down syndrome with compassion, love, and celebration, thank you. I know that Diane is not the only nurse who has changed the story for a family navigating a Down syndrome diagnosis. Nurses, you influence so much of a family’s early experiences with their child – YOU are where the story starts. You make us better.