The Loving Nursery

The nursery is a community. Long hours spent hoping for the best, sometimes expecting the worst, bind us together. Two rows of warmers are separated by the nurses station in the middle. We continually monitor the vital signs of those in our care. Under the gel pad of each warmer is a card with a picture of Jesus on the front and The Lord's Prayer on the back. When "the black cloud" is coming one of our members sprinkles holy water throughout the nursery in hopes of warding off the evil that is believed to be in our midst. Not everyone in the nursery believes this to be true, but because of the close bond that is formed among us, not a single one of us would say anything against this ritual. We are a community formed by choice of career, salary, benefits, and work hours. We are also a community formed by so much more. The level of devotion, compassion, and caring upheld by each individual tightly bind us together. Looking into the face of an infant that is being held lovingly in their parent's arms after a stay in our care says it all. We love our "job" and this makes us a community.

The nursery extracts a hefty emotional toll. It is impossible to remain emotionally detached to the babies in our care. Sometimes we care for a baby for several months. We feed, change, bathe, and hold the babies for hours every single day. During their stay in the nursery they are our children. We go into this realizing that we will lose our child either by death knocking at their door or by their parents taking them. Both of these outcomes extract a certain level of emotional distress. Chances are that if death comes for them it will be sooner rather than later and we will not have had time to grow emotionally attached to them. Death however is always hard to witness, especially when the person has not even had a chance to live. If their parents get to take them home this is a bittersweet time because we will miss "our baby" but it is our goal to get them healthy enough to go home. All of this emotional turmoil that is ingrained in the nursery is really the only tension that arises. Some members of our community feel "burnout" due to the emotional stress felt. When a person feels burnout they do not perform the job as well. A conflict among members then arises because there is no room for less than 100%. Every baby deserves the best chance we can give them and any member of our group that does not perform their best tends to be seen as an outcast and is looked upon unfavorably.

When an infant comes to the nursery it is because they are sick in some way. They may be born early and have underdeveloped lungs or they may be born with a birth defect that requires surgery before they get to go home. No matter the reason they come to us and we do the best that we can to help them out. I love being able to send a now healthy baby home with the parents. The joy in the faces of those parents and the knowledge that we played a part in the outcome is the reason that I am a part of this community. We do lose some babies, but the ability to keep going in the face of this heart wrenching fact, is the reason that I know that this is a community that I want to be apart of. It is a tough career choice that many people could not stomach, but for those of us that can, it is the most awarding experience in the world.