Samantha Sandvig - Daisy Award

I wanted to have as natural of a labor as I could to deliver our sweet baby girl, but when complications became evident with an ultrasound, my doctor recommended induction that same day. We arrived at the hospital that night wary, unsure, and a bit afraid since this was to be the birth of our first child.

The induction started normally and everything was going smoothly until the next day when it came time to break my water. My doctor broke my water, but because of the high amount of amniotic fluid, he had to be careful not to let the cord drop below our baby's head. He did this successfully and I continued to labor with the help of our nurse, Sam. She always made sure I was comfortable, had what I needed and was respectful of my very specific birth plan. :) She also explained everything well when things needed to veer off of my birth plan.

After I labored some time once my water was broken, the baby's heart monitor started to show a significant decrease in the baby's heart rate whenever I would have a large contraction. Sam would show up in our room seconds after this had happened to make sure everything was okay with both me and the baby. She would check monitors and try some different things in order to make sure what we were hearing and seeing was correct. After a couple times of this happening, she decided to "check" me to see how far along I was and what was happening with baby when the heart rate would drop. As soon as she checked me, she realized that the cord had now dropped below the head, and we had a prolapsed cord. She instructed my husband to push the Staff Assist button and the whole gang of nurses entered our room. It was an emergent situation that required lots of hands and coordinated teamwork. Sam and the nurses worked so well together to make sure our baby was safe and got me to the OR swiftly and safely for an emergency c-section. Even as I was being prepared for the c-section, Sam acknowledged and apologized that this wasn't the birth plan I had envisioned for the birth of our baby girl, but we both knew it was what needed to happen to save the life of our sweet baby girl. The c-section was performed and our sweet Ella Joy was born.

We credit Ella's life to our incredible nurse, Sam. Not only did she help me through labor and make sure I was comfortable and was executing my birth plan as closely as we could, but she was also very attentive to my health and the health of our baby. If she had not been in our room as soon as our baby's heart dropped and made the call to check me when she did, we could have lost our little girl. She was the nurse who was meant to be with us that day. We are forever thankful for her care, knowledge, attentiveness, skill, and kindness. Because of her, we took home a healthy and happy baby girl.