Thank you Nurse Kudiwa

My thank you today is for Nurse Kudiwa at the NICU ward at Queens Hospital in Romford, Essex. Kudiwa was one of the first nurses to look after our little girl Sophie who was born at 29 weeks + 1 day in October 2017 and I was reassured from the very first time that I met her that Sophie was in good hands. She was calm, gentle and softly spoken – perhaps everything you want for your child when you can’t be there yourself. 

 As a Christian it was hard for me to make peace with the fact that my baby had been born so prematurely and I prayed hard every day for God to bring peace and understanding to my broken heart. 

No peace

For any of you who have had a baby prematurely you will know that peace is the last thing you have. The distinct lack of peace in your heart and in your head as you go home each night without your beautiful new baby, lack of peace about what you might have done wrong whilst you carried her and lastly, a lack of peace whilst sitting in the NICU ward with machines bleeping and alarming loudly, seemingly every few minutes. 

 As I sat in the NICU ward having skin-to-skin contact with Sophie I would often sing her my favourite songs that I knew from church. They filled me with a sense of calm and eased my over-thinking mind. Even now if she is struggling to settle I will still sing her one of those songs. “Bless the lord oh my soul” and “Here I am to worship” are still my ‘go-to’ songs that bring reassurance and a sense of calm when everything else in your life seems so confusing and loud. 

Singing the same songs  

I don’t know if Kudiwa knew that I was a Christian or if she was just getting on with her day but one day as she walked past I heard her singing one of ‘my songs’. 

I cannot tell you how much I needed that and how much just hearing someone else singing the same words as I had been doing previously meant but just there and then in that precious moment I knew that Sophie would be ok and that we would one day leave NICU with a happy and healthy baby. I left the unit that day with a lighter step and a greater sense of calm than I had ever had before. 

Lasting impact

Kudiwa, you cannot have known how much I needed to hear that song on that particular day, yet what you did would have such a lasting impact on the way I felt about our time in the NICU. 

Kudiwa – thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for your calm, thank you for your patience with us and, most importantly, thank you for caring for our beautiful baby girl the way you did. Thank you for helping to lift my spirits when I needed it the most. I thank God for you and all of the wonderful nurses that took care of our precious girl and for the work that you do each and every day, despite some of the most difficult conditions. 

Thanks to Michelle Barrie for sharing Sophie’s story.