From Floyd NICU Mom to Labor & Delivery Nurse
Carrying twins meant Jenna Blessing knew there was a good chance her first days as a mother might not go exactly as planned.
Multiples, according to experts, are more likely to arrive early, more likely to need extra support after birth and more likely to spend time in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. So, when her newborn baby boys were taken to the NICU at Baptist Health Floyd, she was worried, but not shocked.
What caught her off guard was how quickly the people caring for them began to feel familiar.
“As hard as them being in the NICU was, the care felt so personal,” Jenna said. “I worried about their well-being, of course, but I knew they were in good hands.”
Jenna grew up in Floyds Knobs, one of five children. She left southern Indiana for college in Nashville and stayed there for about eight years. When she and her husband started preparing to welcome a family of their own, they came back.
“Absolutely,” Jenna said of wanting her family nearby. “And that was even before we knew they were twins, so I couldn’t even imagine. My mom and my sisters have saved my life.”
By then, Jenna was also a brand-new nurse. She finished nursing school in December 2024 while newly pregnant and started her career in an orthopedic office in Louisville.
Her pregnancy, she said, was remarkably smooth.
“I loved being pregnant,” she said. “Obviously, it was a little hard physically with the twins, but I had no complications. We had no problems.”
Then her water broke at exactly 35 weeks.
Jenna had just delivered one of the boys when the plan changed quickly and an emergency C-section, and general anesthesia, was needed for the second. The difficult delivery left her exhausted and recovering while both boys, Jack and Henry, began receiving care in the NICU.
“It was very hard,” Jenna said. “It’s hard seeing your babies hooked up to a bunch of machines.”
Jack needed CPAP support, and Jenna did not hold either boy until later that first day. Even with a nursing education, neonatal intensive care was unfamiliar territory.
She praises the patience of the care team, each of whom explained what was happening and the next steps. She remembers the kindness of one nurse practitioner who sat with her and talked through every concern.
“She just answered all of the questions I had,” Jenna said. “I was crying and she was hugging me.”
The boys needed to get stronger and keep gaining weight before they could safely go home.
“They were where they needed to be for their time, and they would come home with me when they were ready,” she said. “I knew that they were taking good care of them.”
Baptist Health Floyd’s Level II NICU opened in spring 2023, giving more families in southern Indiana the option to receive specialized newborn care close to home. The unit can care for babies born at 32 weeks gestation and later, weighing at least 1,500 grams and generally not requiring ventilator support for more than 24 hours.
Donor support helped bring the NICU to Floyd and continues to provide equipment and resources for both the NICU and Mother Baby areas, including Panda warmers and other tools used in newborn care.
“We stay consistently full,” said Emily Banet, director of Women’s and Children’s Services at Baptist Health Floyd. “We just continue to grow and learn new things.”
Growth has included additional staff highly trained in neonatal care, along with the skills that are harder to teach, like teamwork and compassion.
“We’re very family-oriented,” Emily said. “We have a culture of kindness and a culture of collaboration.”
After Jenna was discharged, she was allowed to remain at the hospital as a boarder so she could stay near the boys. She stayed almost another week.
“I was not ready to go home and leave them,” she said.
Jack spent about two weeks in the NICU before heading home with his parents, while Henry stayed a few days longer to finish growing. Jenna’s husband visited him after work, sometimes staying until midnight. Then Henry came home, too.
“They’re so educational in the NICU,” she said. “I just tried to take everything that they taught me about how to care for them and did it at home.”
Today, those worries are hard to reconcile with two busy toddlers.
“Last year we were worried about them eating,” Jenna said, laughing, “and now they won’t stop eating anything.”
The NICU team gets to see some of that transformation each year, too. Baptist Health Floyd recently held its third NICU reunion. The event has grown enough to move to a larger space where former patients can run and play. Families also recognize one another from the weeks they once spent in neighboring NICU bays.
“It creates a sense of family within the people who’ve been in the NICU,” Emily said. “You spend so much time and energy on so many of these kids. Watching them grow up and learn to walk, and now they’re feeding themselves – it’s a great feeling to be able to watch that and know that you had a hand in it.”
Jenna now understands both sides of that relationship.
Only months after bringing Jack and Henry home, she joined Baptist Health Floyd as a Labor & Delivery nurse. Previously, this was not part of her plan. But the people who cared for the Blessings had shown her the kind of nurse she wanted to be.
“It was really the nursing staff,” she said. “Everyone was so lovely and so easy to talk to. I never felt brushed off or stupid for asking questions.”
In recent one-on-one conversations with more than half of her approximately 130 staff members, Emily asked why they come to work and why they stay. Repeatedly, the answers came back to the people, the patients and the work itself.
“They come back day after day, no matter what happens, because of each other and the culture,” Emily said.
Care like that leaves something behind. In Jenna's case, it became something worth carrying forward.
“I never thought that I would be a Labor & Delivery nurse,” Jenna said. “But after going through what I went through and being taken care of so well, it just made me think, ‘I want to do this, too.’”
Multiples, according to experts, are more likely to arrive early, more likely to need extra support after birth and more likely to spend time in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. So, when her newborn baby boys were taken to the NICU at Baptist Health Floyd, she was worried, but not shocked.
What caught her off guard was how quickly the people caring for them began to feel familiar.
“As hard as them being in the NICU was, the care felt so personal,” Jenna said. “I worried about their well-being, of course, but I knew they were in good hands.”
Jenna grew up in Floyds Knobs, one of five children. She left southern Indiana for college in Nashville and stayed there for about eight years. When she and her husband started preparing to welcome a family of their own, they came back.
“Absolutely,” Jenna said of wanting her family nearby. “And that was even before we knew they were twins, so I couldn’t even imagine. My mom and my sisters have saved my life.”
By then, Jenna was also a brand-new nurse. She finished nursing school in December 2024 while newly pregnant and started her career in an orthopedic office in Louisville.
Her pregnancy, she said, was remarkably smooth.
“I loved being pregnant,” she said. “Obviously, it was a little hard physically with the twins, but I had no complications. We had no problems.”
Then her water broke at exactly 35 weeks.
Jenna had just delivered one of the boys when the plan changed quickly and an emergency C-section, and general anesthesia, was needed for the second. The difficult delivery left her exhausted and recovering while both boys, Jack and Henry, began receiving care in the NICU.
“It was very hard,” Jenna said. “It’s hard seeing your babies hooked up to a bunch of machines.”
Jack needed CPAP support, and Jenna did not hold either boy until later that first day. Even with a nursing education, neonatal intensive care was unfamiliar territory.
She praises the patience of the care team, each of whom explained what was happening and the next steps. She remembers the kindness of one nurse practitioner who sat with her and talked through every concern.
“She just answered all of the questions I had,” Jenna said. “I was crying and she was hugging me.”
The boys needed to get stronger and keep gaining weight before they could safely go home.
“They were where they needed to be for their time, and they would come home with me when they were ready,” she said. “I knew that they were taking good care of them.”
Baptist Health Floyd’s Level II NICU opened in spring 2023, giving more families in southern Indiana the option to receive specialized newborn care close to home. The unit can care for babies born at 32 weeks gestation and later, weighing at least 1,500 grams and generally not requiring ventilator support for more than 24 hours.
Donor support helped bring the NICU to Floyd and continues to provide equipment and resources for both the NICU and Mother Baby areas, including Panda warmers and other tools used in newborn care.
“We stay consistently full,” said Emily Banet, director of Women’s and Children’s Services at Baptist Health Floyd. “We just continue to grow and learn new things.”
Growth has included additional staff highly trained in neonatal care, along with the skills that are harder to teach, like teamwork and compassion.
“We’re very family-oriented,” Emily said. “We have a culture of kindness and a culture of collaboration.”
After Jenna was discharged, she was allowed to remain at the hospital as a boarder so she could stay near the boys. She stayed almost another week.
“I was not ready to go home and leave them,” she said.
Jack spent about two weeks in the NICU before heading home with his parents, while Henry stayed a few days longer to finish growing. Jenna’s husband visited him after work, sometimes staying until midnight. Then Henry came home, too.
“They’re so educational in the NICU,” she said. “I just tried to take everything that they taught me about how to care for them and did it at home.”
Today, those worries are hard to reconcile with two busy toddlers.
“Last year we were worried about them eating,” Jenna said, laughing, “and now they won’t stop eating anything.”
The NICU team gets to see some of that transformation each year, too. Baptist Health Floyd recently held its third NICU reunion. The event has grown enough to move to a larger space where former patients can run and play. Families also recognize one another from the weeks they once spent in neighboring NICU bays.
“It creates a sense of family within the people who’ve been in the NICU,” Emily said. “You spend so much time and energy on so many of these kids. Watching them grow up and learn to walk, and now they’re feeding themselves – it’s a great feeling to be able to watch that and know that you had a hand in it.”
Jenna now understands both sides of that relationship.
Only months after bringing Jack and Henry home, she joined Baptist Health Floyd as a Labor & Delivery nurse. Previously, this was not part of her plan. But the people who cared for the Blessings had shown her the kind of nurse she wanted to be.
“It was really the nursing staff,” she said. “Everyone was so lovely and so easy to talk to. I never felt brushed off or stupid for asking questions.”
In recent one-on-one conversations with more than half of her approximately 130 staff members, Emily asked why they come to work and why they stay. Repeatedly, the answers came back to the people, the patients and the work itself.
“They come back day after day, no matter what happens, because of each other and the culture,” Emily said.
Care like that leaves something behind. In Jenna's case, it became something worth carrying forward.
“I never thought that I would be a Labor & Delivery nurse,” Jenna said. “But after going through what I went through and being taken care of so well, it just made me think, ‘I want to do this, too.’”
“I never thought that I would be a Labor & Delivery nurse. But after going through what I went through and being taken care of so well, it just made me think, ‘I want to do this, too.’”
The Dawn of a Healthier Tomorrow
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