Terry Melton, NICU Nurse
Northwestern Prentice Women’s Hospital
Nominated by Dina Ibach
My husband and I had our firstborn son on April 14, 2016 at Prentice Women’s Hospital, 2 months early. I had done everything in my power to have the healthiest, most beneficial pregnancy for our baby and we were completely in shock when we delivered 2 months early. Nothing in my pregnancy indicated anything to be concerned about and my OBGYN was certain that I would deliver full term, if not late, with this being my firstborn and our pregnancy being so normal, for lack of a better term.
Terry, one of our amazing NICU nurses at Prentice, was the one who watched over our son the most and she is truly the reason why my husband and I held it together as much as we did during the 2 months we spent in the NICU, every single day, for about 16 hours a day. We only went home to sleep and shower.
Terry is the one who taught me to breastfeed, care for our preemie son, bathe him, soothe him, bond with him. We were discharged from the NICU just in time for Mother’s Day, and the very next day at our very first pediatrician appointment, we were readmitted into the NICU at Prentice.
We were devastated, to say the least. We were hoping to be assigned to Terry’s rotation/care once again, but the system places the babies in the NICU as pods open up and we were assigned a brand new team and we were at a tremendous loss, we didn’t have any sort of a connection with our new team of nurses, since they didn’t know who we were, who our son was. The very next day, early in the morning, we returned to the NICU and our new pod, and Terry was there. My husband and I sobbed actual tears of relief to know that she had requested to take care of our Everett once she learned that he had been readmitted.
We were discharged from Prentice for a second time, visited our pediatrician again for the 2nd time, and we were admitted to the NICU for a THIRD time. We were again, devastated. This time, we were admitted to Lurie’s Children’s Hospital so we knew there was no chance that Terry would be able to care for our son since we were in a different hospital and while the nurses were amazing at Lurie’s, it wasn’t the same having Terry by our side as she had been by our side, our son’s side, since his birthday.
We truly believe that Everett was assigned an angel from God to watch over him while he was in the NICU the first 2 stays. We will cherish her for the rest of our lives. She is truly our living angel.