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Nursing Narratives is a new regular feature for UVA nursing students that provides them with space to express their thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Virginia Nursing Legacy (VNL) thanks the Jefferson Trust, which has funded this enterprise in both the VNL's print and digital editions through May 2025.

This edition of Narratives focuses on the intersection of nursing and parenthood, and all the many ways that nurses are in our lives from the very beginning and mark us in unique and profound ways. We also offer this edition's theme as a nod to National Parents' Day, celebrated at the end of each July.

Narratives is edited by DNP student and Jefferson Trust Grant recipient Sherrie Page Guyer, MSN, RN, editor. Faculty members who would like to coordinate student assignments and students with article ideas that should be considered for this space may email Sherrie.

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Working as a critical care nurse during the pandemic, death was always with me. 

I remember endless gray days with constant code blues, beeping ventilators, and alarming IV pumps. Add in no family visitation, just the healthcare team assigned to each patient, and an already devastating situation became even more painfully surreal. A bright light during this bleak time, though, was getting to care for new life.

A wife of a Marine veteran, positive for COVID and 29 weeks pregnant, had been admitted to my unit. She quickly progressed into respiratory failure, requiring mechanical ventilation, and nearly impossible prone positioning. Despite our best efforts, her respiratory status quickly declined. Working as an ECMO specialist for our COVID unit, I received word that this patient would be placed on ECMO followed by a planned Cesarean section to delivery the baby.

Though the surgery was successful, both mother and baby weren’t out of the woods. For the following weeks in ICU, I cared for the mom, who was slow to progress, experienced complications characteristic of COVID-19 ECMO patients, including right heart failure, as well as high levels of anxiety and depression.

I got to spend a lot of time with her. Even small moments — sitting next to her, holding her hand, letting her cry — helped get her through. It helped me, too. Over weeks, she finally started to get better.

As nurses, we consider the disease process but focus on the human, too. By being present and enduring this stressful situation alongside my patient, she progressed, and eventually was well enough to be decannulated from ECMO support and reunited with her baby boy, who’d fully recovered in the neonatal ICU. I’ll always remember this mom and son patient-duo as my glimmer of light during the pandemic, their life outshining death.

Capt. E.J. Rauch, BSN, RN, CCRN, is a member of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, a DNP student, and a new father.