Mommy Joanna

The day we took Jocelyn home!

Who is Mommy Joanna you ask?  Well, she was Jocelyn's primary nurse when she was in the NICU.  We call her Mommy Joanna because she was, in so many ways, Jocelyn's temporary "Mommy", and she was so wonderful to her, and to Pat and me.   She was so wonderful that after Jocelyn finally got to go home, I sent a letter to the head nurse in the department (with a copy to Joanna) telling her about our experiences.
I'm thinking about her again because yesterday I had a wonderful chat with her on the phone.
I had called the NICU to find out if there was a NICU reunion scheduled for this year.  There has been only one since Jocelyn was born, and they used to be yearly.  Unfortunately, the answer was "No" and I'm sad about that, but anyway...
When I called, they connected me to the charge nurse, and Joanna answered the phone!!  I was so excited when I realized it was her, and was amazed that she remembered me, but there's a funny story behind that.

This was early in Jocelyn's stay in the NICU.  She was still in the incubator, and was not yet drinking from a bottle, so she had a feeding tube.  Joanna let me feed her one night, which meant I held the syringe that was connected to the tube that drained my precious, pumped, breast milk into her tummy.  Well, Joanna stepped away for a minute and the syringe came off the tube and milk poured out all over Jocelyn, her blankets and bedding and everything!!  I was in a panic.  Everything is SO sterile, so I was afraid to touch anything.  Joanna came running back to help.  This was the first time I held Jocelyn, of course it was at arms length, up in the air, through the incubator holes, and while Joanna changed all her bedding, but I still held her!!  After cleaning everything up, we gave Jocelyn a baby bath and resumed feeding.  What an exciting night for me!   But Joanna seems to have blamed herself!  It's a funny story that apparently, neither of us has forgotten. 

Anyway, long story short, Joanna told me yesterday that she was recently up for promotion to the charge nurse position and she had to write a letter explaining why she felt she deserved the position.  She said she used this story and the letter I wrote to her supervisor as her example, that despite everything, we still loved her and considered her a wonderful nurse.  Joanna got the promotion!!
She said the last sentence in her letter was "No use crying over spilt milk".  How appropriate!
We will always treasure our memories of Mommy Joanna, and be forever thankful for what she did for all of us so early on in Jocelyn's life.