The strike, from the viewpoint of tiny patient's mom

It was a nerve-wracking day for Danielle McGruder.

Her tiny baby, Jazmia, has been in the hands of nurses at Abbott Northwestern Hospital since she was born May 23, two months premature. The same nurses feed her, change her, hold her, measure her progress. They are there all the days that McGruder can't be there.

Except Thursday, the day of the strike.

When McGruder, 25, of Plymouth, came to see her baby Thursday morning, there was a stranger asking her for all the details that Jazmia's regular nurses knew instinctively.

"I brought a stuffed animal," McGruder said. "She wasn't sure if I could put it in with her. She had to go ask."

Few things create a stronger bond than sharing the care of a new baby. That's why the nurses who care for the delicate preemies who stay in the hospital for weeks or even months often develop special relationships with the parents of their tiny charges. That's why McGruder was anxious as the deadline loomed for Thursday's strike.

But McGruder admitted, a bit grudgingly, that the replacement nurse she met over her daughter's bassinet seemed competent.

On Thursday afternoon, seven hours into the nurses' strike, the special care nursery at Abbott was quiet and calm. Clusters of parents and nurses stood around the plexiglass bassinets. One baby let out a cry as thin as kitten's mewing.

Jazmia, breathtakingly small at 2.6 pounds, slept peacefully while formula from a big syringe slowly dripped through a tiny feeding tube in her nose. Her foot was just the same length as her mother's thumb.

McGruder says no matter how good they are, however, she's a tough sell on the replacement nurses.

When her regular nurses went out for a massive protest in April, McGruder, who was then in the hospital on bed rest, joined them in her wheelchair. On Thursday, to show her support for the strikers, she wore one of the red Minnesota Nurses Association T-shirts. One of the hospital staff told her firmly that while inside the hospital she had to cover it up with a sweatshirt.

"Without nurses, how do you run a hospital?" she said. "Can you imagine a doctor without a nurse?"

"My main concern is what happens next? After today," she said. "I would hate for the strike to go on longer."