GREEN BAY (NBC 26) — Inside the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at HSHS St. Vincent Children’s Hospital in Green Bay, you’ll find some of the tiniest, most vulnerable patients — and two women with an incredible bond caring for them: mother and daughter, Stacey and Hanna Giese.
Both are NICU nurses, working side by side in one of the most emotionally demanding places in a hospital.
“There’s a family joke that the umbilical cord hasn’t been cut between the two of us yet,” laughs Stacey.
For Stacey, it's more than a job — it’s a calling. She has worked at St. Vincent’s Children's Hospital for 38 years. Her youngest daughter, Hanna, was born during one of Stacey’s NICU shifts. “I said, let them know back in labor and delivery that I’m going to be coming through and having a baby. So be prepared,” she remembers.
For Hanna, the NICU has always felt like home. “What it’s like around here is kind of like what it’s like at her home,” she says. “Her never stopping is just like, okay, I guess that’s what life is like, and it kind of works out here. It’s like, I’m home.”
Now the two care for newborns together, helping mothers welcome life into the world.
“She could anticipate the things that I needed like two seconds before I needed them,” Stacey says. “She was just amazing, giving me things before I needed labs.”
They finish each other's sentences. They joke they’re “not at all” close with a laugh. But truthfully, Hanna says, they share the same personality, the same ideas and work well together in good times and in bad.
“It’s been the best, really the best,” Hanna says. “Ups and downs, but we always get through it. She’s really the best.”
Stacey and Hanna have been working together at St. Vincent Children's Hospital NICU unit for nearly a year.... and counting.
