Elizabeth Alt - Bringing the Job Valuable Insight

Family: Husband, Matthew; daughters, Bailey, 12,and Daphne, 10

Became an RN: 2020

Employer: Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center

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Every day at work, I have the opportunity to witness new life come into the world – occasions that are accompanied by boundless joy and, sometimes, profound sadness. I’m there with families as babies take their first breath. I’ve held a mother’s hand as her child goes to the neonatal intensive care unit. I never take these moments for granted.

I’m now a mother-baby nurse at Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center. I came to the job later than many others do. I crossed paths with nurses as a teenager when my mother got sick and later passed away. When my daughters were born, I once again felt the power of nurses. When my youngest daughter started school, I did too – nursing school.

Nursing for me is an opportunity to serve people. I always knew I wanted to make a difference. I started in pediatrics (just as the pandemic was beginning) and went to obstetrics after a year. Here, I’ve found that I can make special connections when the opportunity presents itself.

I was adopted as an infant. When I was young, that made me curious and led to lots of questions: What’s it like to be a birth mother? What drives adoptive parents? Adoption is a subject fraught with many emotions for everyone involved.

When we had an adoptive situation in our unit, I discovered that my perspective was able to help. I also realized that I still have so very much to learn about myself. We had an expectant mother who put her baby up for adoption. I shared my story with her because I wanted her to feel supported and help her through a difficult experience. It felt like it was a normal and natural thing to do.

I witnessed the love on the birth mother’s face and the agony she went through making the choice to create a better life for her baby. I watched the transition to the adoptive family and saw the unshakeable bonds they instantly made with their child. This changed my perspective on my own path. It gave me insight I hadn’t had before.

The pandemic showed us a lot of things, especially the invaluable support that friends and family provide for people in the hospital. Because visitation was limited, we had to dig deep and figure out how to provide both physical and spiritual support. That’s the heart of nursing – providing everything that patients need to be whole again, even if it means showing your own human side in the process.