Back to the Bedside After Loss

Grief came with me.

2.20.2026

15 - a personal blog

Grief came with me. The first shift back, I sat in my car longer than I needed to. My badge was in my hand. My scrubs felt unfamiliar. The building looked the same — steady, clinical, untouched by what had happened to my world. Inside those walls, babies were still fighting. Parents were still praying. Monitors were still beeping. And my daughter was not there.  Walking back into the NICU after losing Ivy felt like walking into a memory that refused to end.

Every sound was familiar. Every alarm pulled at something deep in my chest. Every tiny bed felt like it could have been hers. I had stood at those bedsides as a nurse before. Confident. Capable. Steady. But this time, I knew too much. I knew what it felt like to memorize oxygen numbers. To bargain silently in the middle of the night. To hold your breath during rounds. To smile at doctors while your heart fractures quietly inside your chest. I wasn’t just caring for patients anymore. I was seeing myself in their mothers. There were moments I had to step away. Moments my hands felt steady but my throat burned. Moments I wondered if I was strong enough to stay. Because grief doesn’t clock out. It follows you into supply rooms. It lingers in empty chairs. It shows up in the way you hesitate before touching a tiny hand. Returning to the bedside wasn’t brave. It was terrifying. But staying away felt wrong too. Because even in my grief — especially in my grief — I understood something I hadn’t before.

These families don’t need perfection. They need presence. They need someone who won’t rush their fear. Someone who understands that the worst can happen — and still chooses to sit with them anyway. I am not the same nurse I was before Ivy. Loss stripped something from me. But it also carved something deeper. My empathy is no longer learned. It’s lived. When I tell a mother, “I’m here,” I mean it in a way I never could before. When I sit in silence, I’m not uncomfortable — I’m remembering.

Grief came back to the bedside with me. It stands beside me every shift. But so does Ivy. And some days, that’s the only reason I can walk through those doors again.