Giving to Newport Hospital
The Voice of Our Patients
The Pinnocks: A Small Miracle
 Like many young couples, Ellen and Joshua Pinnock of Middletown were eager to start a family.
When Ellen learned she was pregnant in 2002, they were overjoyed. They shared their news with their friends and family. Then Ellen had a miscarriage.
The Pinnocks grieved their loss, never losing faith that they would someday have a child. Less than two years later, they conceived again. Ellen had mixed emotions about being pregnant; while she wanted to enjoy the experience, she was terrified of losing the baby.
In July, Ellen’s gestational diabetes test results were abnormal and the protein levels in her urine were high. Because Ellen was one centimeter dilated, she needed to be closely observed. Ellen was admitted to the Noreen Stonor Drexel Birthing Center at Newport Hospital, where she spent four days. Only two weeks after she was discharged from the hospital, Ellen developed preeclampsia, a condition with no known cause, and delivery its only cure.
Ellen was readmitted to the birthing center on August 16 for bed rest. Birthing center nurses Eileen Santaniello, RN, and Mary Lovegreen, RN, say Ellen was “quiet and reserved at first.” Eileen remembers Ellen having “a very anxious time waiting for her baby. Her husband was always there with her. He stayed every night and went to work right from the hospital.” As time passed, Ellen became comfortable with the birthing center staff. “We all got to know her very well,” Mary says.
For women with preeclampsia, delivery is recommended as soon as the baby has a good chance of surviving on its own. On September 1, 2004, Ellen was told she needed to have an emergency C-section. Ellen’s due date was still five weeks away, but it was determined unsafe to wait any longer to deliver the baby.
Childbirth education coordinator Marlene Davis, RN, remembers Ellen’s“quiet strength through it all. I know there must have been raging emotions but she always carried them with great faith.”
While her husband was on his way to the hospital from work, Ellen was prepped for her C-section and comforted by the nurses who had been by her side for the past two and- a-half weeks. “I remember Mary staying with me even though her shift was over,” Ellen says. “She stayed with me so I could hold onto her. Eileen wasn’t even working the unit at the time, but she came to be with me when she got off her shift. She brought me warm blankets. They all took good care of me. They always had smiles on their faces.”
Dorothy Reagan-Kimberly Pinnock was born at 11:24 a.m. Weighing just four pounds and measuring only eighteen inches long, Dorothy was a small miracle. “I think the nurses were just as excited as we were. They treat every baby like their first baby.”
For more information about giving call Mary Alice Smith, chief development officer, at 401-845-1617 or e-mail masmith@lifespan.org.
Back |
