The Angel Nurse

So, rewind with me to Thursday. We had just been through our 4 hour cardiologist appointment and been sent home with some very scary news resonating in our heads. And we were in 2 cars. I was desperate to see my high risk doctor, to get someone else's take on the whole thing, to beg for an earlier c-section date. So I called and left a message with Dr. Fancy's nurse. She doesn't know me at all and it took her a while to call me back. When she did, she said she could not squeeze me in the next day because they were full and since I wasn't a real patient, I needed my OB's approval to get in. But I see Dr. Fancy every week. How am I not real patient??

Within seconds of hanging up with this nurse, my nurse from my OB office returned my similar plea-for-help call. And I believe, truly in my heart, that God put her on the other end of my cell phone that day at that moment when it felt like my world was crashing down around me.

Her name is Becky. And she's my Angel Nurse.

I told her what was going on, about the inconclusive ultrasound the day before, the 4 hour long cardiologist appointment, the diagnosis. And she was sad with me. And she let me sob. But then she helped me pull it together. She asked what the issues were. In my bleary-eyed-driving-on-the-freeway state, I couldn't look back at my notes and diagrams.

"Something like a cotraction of his ...oh, something, " I said.

"Oh, a coarctation of the aorta?" She asked.

"Oh. Yes. Yes, that's it. And something about a valve."

"Oh, the ductus, yes, yes."

And we went on and on. And my OB nurse, who is not trained in cardiology, knew exactly what was going on, exactly what Sam had been diagnosed with. She went on to tell me of 2 different babies that she knows personally who were born with very similar problems who are now thriving, chubby, happy babies.These were the first (of many) success stories I had heard. And about how the hospital we will be delivering at and having surgery at is the best place possible to be. And how we are so lucky to know now.

"So what's the plan?" She asked.

"I have to deliver with Dr. Fancy now."

"Well, that makes good sense." She agreed.

"But I just want to get him out!" I sobbed. "They tell me he's okay right now but how do they know he'll be okay in a few days? What if the problem gets worse? And I'm off the baby aspirin now." I was desperate.

Becky, the Angel Nurse, round 2. She went on and on, in the calmest voice, about how Baby Sam is in the best possible place right now. He is obviously getting everything he needs, he's 9 pounds after all, and he needs to be as big as possible and as strong as possible for his surgery. Inside of me, he is doing just fine, great really, it's only after he's born that he'll need help. She told me that God is on my side, watching me so closely.

Then she told me to go ahead and come on in the next morning just to talk to the doctor. And that day, when she saw me, she hugged me and reassured me all over again. She offered me contact information for the mamas of the babies who had similar problems. And she told me to call any time that I needed to talk.

I needed Becky that afternoon in the car. And she had all the right words to say to me. And I am so thankful.

2 Corinthains 1:3-4
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."