LOUISVILLE, Ky. — It’s not uncommon for generations of family members to work in the same field. You see it all the time with our first responders and healthcare workers. But for Jordan Spalding, who's a Labor and Delivery nurse at Baptist Health Louisville, she’s not only working in the same field as her grandmother, she’s quite literally following in her footsteps.
"I saw a baby being born and I was like, that was it. I never want to go anywhere else," Spalding said.
Spalding says working labor and delivery just 'fell in her lap,' but she hasn’t left since.
"I love my patients. I love being a ‘baby-catcher,'" she said.
She’s been a part of the team since 2016, but her family’s history here dates back decades. Her grandmother, Martha Schweitzer, was also a labor and delivery nurse on the very same floor. She was there the moment Spalding was born. It soon became a spot to visit her grandmother when she was a child, never knowing one day she'd come back to it for her career.
"Walking into work those first couple of years, her presence was there," Spalding said.
The two never crossed paths during their time as nurses. Schweitzer retired long before Spalding began.
"It's definitely cool that there are still people there who remember what a force she was when she worked there and still is a force," Spalding said. “Knowing someone that was a nurse and has been a nurse, and hearing stories from her, I just knew that's the footsteps I wanted to follow and that's definitely why I followed my decision into nursing.”
The field of nursing has changed quite a bit over the years.
“When she was here, we did everything on paper, charting, fetal monitor strips were on a paper sheet and we’d document on those,” Dr. Leigh Price, an OB-GYN with Baptist Health, said.
But the drive and the passion to help others has stayed the same.
“I strive to be her. I can't imagine getting to work with her. That would've been the coolest thing. I can only aspire to be that person and hope one day that I am and follow in her footsteps and just make her proud. I think that would be amazing," Spalding said.
Contact reporter Brooke Hasch at bhasch@whas11.com. Follow her on Twitter (@WHAS11Hasch) and Facebook.
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