She's the nurse who makes funny T-shirts and teeny tiny hats for the preemie babies.

She's made fun costumes for five years running − a John Deere tractor, a pumpkin spice latte − for each baby every October, so that parents of medically fragile babies can have the same Halloween joy as any other parent. 

She always refers to her patients by name, and always calls their parents "Mom" and "Dad," to remind everyone that they're dealing with human beings and not bundles of wires and tubes in incubators.

She listens, really listens, to traumatized parents as they spill out their pain. She often reaches out after their babies are discharged from the neonatal intensive care unit. She sometimes even visits them in their homes on her own time.

"I wish every person could have a Kim Meek in their NICU journey," said Brittany McCurdy, mother of twin girls who were born premature. "We love her so much."

Patients and staff often say there is no nurse more loving than Kim Meek at Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital Midtown's NICU in Nashville, Tennessee. Because no other nurse understands the unique combination of the joy of childbirth and the fear of losing a child as well as Meek does.

In 2008, Meek's daughter, Mary Farris, was born at 1 pound 3 ounces, more than three months before her due date. The baby spent 148 days in the NICU at what was then Baptist Hospital.

Meek – then an assistant in a doctor's office – was so grateful for the loving care she and her baby received that she decided to go to nursing school to pay it forward.

At that exact same NICU. 

Mission accomplished.

'Everything changes'

Funny thing is, Meek and her husband, rodeo stunt rider George Meek, never wanted children.

When they got married 23 years ago, Kim wasn't interested, and her husband was too focused on his career to consider it.

"We both were absolutely, positively not having kids," Kim said with a definitive nod.

Then, George's teenage niece moved in with them for a while, and Kim's maternal instincts "started to kick in," she said.

When the niece moved out, Kim was devastated. A few months later, in the car, she turned to her husband:

"I changed my mind – I want to have a baby."

He was relieved.

"I wanted to have kids for my mom," George said, shrugging. "Time changed as life goes on. Everything changes."

Kim got pregnant within days of coming off migraine meds, but she had a miscarriage eight weeks later.

"That was a very empty feeling," she said softly.

But, with their doctor's urging, the Meeks tried to get pregnant again.

Several months later, on Christmas Eve 2007, Kim took an at-home pregnancy test late at night, saw the positive result and excitedly woke up her husband. He smiled and rolled over to go back to sleep.

The pregnancy progressed with no issues; at 20 weeks, the Meeks found out they were having a girl. Four weeks later, Kim started throwing up at home a few hours after dinner and couldn't stop.

When she lost her sight – all she could see was blackness with some white spots – Meek woke George.

Doctors determined she had HELLP Syndrome, a life-threatening high blood pressure condition during pregnancy. As Kim's vital signs plummeted, a doctor told her husband they had to begin surgery immediately or mother and baby could both die. George nodded his consent.

The obstetrician, Dr. Richard Presley, who still practices in Nashville, asked Kim if she wanted to pray with him. The gesture brought a brief moment of relief in her confusion and terror.

She woke up to learn her baby, Mary Farris, weighed 1 pound 3 ounces, couldn't breathe through her nose and was on a ventilator in an incubator in the NICU. The baby stayed on the vent for six weeks. Within days, Mary Farris had the first of 15 surgeries to correct problems with her nose and her ears.

Terrified, Kim Meek couldn't help but notice the smiles and love emanating from most staff members.

"You come in, somebody’s rocking your baby; you come in, someone's reading to your baby. One day you come in and they made her a moustache made of cotton balls," she said, smiling. "It was precious."

Meek also noticed the nurses usually called her "Mom" or "Mama," and they regularly used the baby's name.

"It was really difficult for me to bond with a baby in a plastic box. It's really scary stuff," Meek said.

"But those little things made me able to see her differenty. They help you realized this is your child, your baby, not just some sick infant with wires and tubes and monitors."

Sobbing at the job

After nearly five months of having a baby in a NICU, Meek went home with an adorable baby who had tiny bows in her hair and a feeding tube coming out of her stomach.

Meek also went home with post-traumatic stress, occasional depression that really kicked in on her baby's birthdays and a seemingly never-ending yearning to go back to the NICU.

"I couldn't get past it, all her trauma, the grieving over the loss of what you had planned, the guilt that every time something goes wrong with her health, you think it's because you couldn't carry them to term," Meek said.

And she really longed for connection with the friends she'd made in the NICU: "I can't explain it really, but a part of life was missing."

The Meeks decided Kim would try to go to nursing school when and if their daughter got rid of her feeding tube.

That happened four years later, on March 12, 2012.

Meek got her acceptance letter from Columbia State Community College nursing school about seven months later. Well, her husband saw it first in the mailbox, then called her and read it to her at her job at a veterinarian's office.

Meek cried and cried at work, overcome with joy and relief, excited about taking the next step toward what she believed was her destiny.

She cried again four years later at graduation, cried when she found out she passed the nursing boards and freaked out in her pink scrubs when, after getting a job at Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown, she saw her name listed among the nurses on the "Welcome to the NICU" sign.

That's when Meek got to work. She was there to support families that were going through the difficult journey she'd made eight years before.

So she called every parent "Mom" or "Dad." She started a network of support groups for preemie parents. She started making "scent pads" that mom could rub on her chest and then put in her baby's incubator.

And she started making Halloween costumes for the preemies every October.

Parents loved them and loved Meek.

"She actually lived what I was going through and she understood," said Brittany Morton, 34, of Murfreesboro, who had a baby at 25 weeks pregnant.

"Anyone can throw some compassionate words together. But Kim has been there. It made me realize what she was saying was genuine."

Healing through helping

Her bosses also appreciate the connection she has with parents.

"She’s just an awesome nurse," said her former longtime supervisor, Kathy Watson, "and anybody that has the opportunity to have her as their nurse in the NICU is very blessed."

What also impresses parents is Meek's willingness to work off hours.

"When she’s at home, she’s thinking about them. When she’s not at the hospital, she’s planning and crafting and making things for these babies and families," said McCurdy, the mother of premature twin girls. "It’s really special and she’s a special person."

Meek insists she gets as much out of her efforts as she puts in.

"I love getting picture updates, text messages and seeing posts where a family remembers something I said or did during their stay. It’s very rewarding when a parent brings their baby back for a visit or attends a NICU reunion and asks to have their picture made with me," she said.

"I work with tiny little fighters and get to witness miracles. These babies and their families have helped me heal. I am proud to be a NICU mom. I am an honored to be a NICU nurse."

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