Our lives often find a way to circle back to our beginnings. And beginning this summer, one young woman is making sure that not only has her life come full circle – she’ll be the perfect person to make a difference.
Hayley Good, 22, is set to begin her career as a nurse in the same Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where she spent the first critical months of her life. Born as a micro-preemie – described as any infant born before the 28th week (or second semester) – her journey from a fragile infant to a NICU nurse is nothing short of extraordinary. “I grew up knowing how the nurses saved my life,” Good said.
I was told that they tirelessly worked and advocated for me, even though they weren’t even sure if I was going to survive.”
Hayley was born at 24 weeks, weighing only 1 pound, 9 ounces, after her parents, Heith and Pamela Good, of Amanda, Ohio, had already endured the heartbreak of losing their first set of identical twin daughters at 23 weeks. “They did not survive the birth,” Good said.
Just a year later, the Goods were expecting another set of identical twins. “We don’t have twins on either side of the family. They would always tell me, they felt like the Lord was giving them their twins back a year later,” she explained.
Hayley Good was born at 24 weeks, and is considered a micro-preemie. Now she is beginning her career as a nurse in the very same NICU she was born in. Photo courtesy of Good
On June 9, 2002, Hayley and her identical twin sister Hillary were born. Sadly, Hillary lived only two days. “She was so sick, she just didn’t survive,” Good recalled. Hayley then faced her own battle for survival, spending about four and a half months in the NICUs at Ohio State University Medical Center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital, where she underwent heart surgery shortly after birth.
Throughout her childhood, Hayley was aware of the vital role the NICU nurses played in her survival and in supporting her family. “A lot of the nurses really tried to wrap my parents with just comfort and love and just caring for me to their best of their ability because they didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said.
This profound experience inspired her to pursue a career in nursing. “That’s all I wanted to do,” she said. She recently earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Cedarville University. She is set to start work in the NICU at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus. “The NICU’s where I feel most at home,” she remarked.
As she prepares to embark on her career, Good reflects on how her history equips her to handle the intense emotional landscape of the NICU. “I think the NICU, it can be very exciting and you just think of how exciting it is to care for babies, but also it is the difference between a baby thriving and a baby dying,” she said.
And so I think you are that middle ground and you get to care for both the thriving child and the one that might pass away. And I think you have the opportunity to care for the whole entire family,” she said.
Good hopes her story will offer hope to parents facing the same uncertainties her parents did. “It happened to me, and my parents were in that spot and they didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said. “I think in the NICU it’s really hard for them to grasp and imagine that their kid will be able to go to high school and college and graduate and be successful.”
“That’s what I’m most excited for, to be able to share my story and show them that there is possibility, that it could be possible for their child too,” she added.
