The NICU Saved Her Life, Now She Wants to Save Others

Albany, GA | July 7, 2026 – In 2008, a tiny baby girl named Cemorra Gaskins entered the world far too soon at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital (PPMH). She was rushed to the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), where a dedicated team of nurses, physicians and other specialized healthcare professionals fought to give her a chance at life.

Eighteen years later, that no-longer-little girl, graduated in the top 10 of her class at Irwin County High School, spoke at her commencement ceremony, and announced that she wants to return to the very unit that saved her life, this time as a NICU nurse. It is a story of survival. It is a story of purpose. And for her family, it is a story that has come beautifully – almost miraculously – full circle.

When Greta Gaskins’ water broke unexpectedly at her doctor’s office in Ocilla, she was only 26 weeks pregnant. She was rushed to Irwin County Hospital and then transferred to PPMH, where she would give birth and spend the most terrifying weeks of her life.

“I was scared. I was crying because I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know if she would live,” Greta said about her new baby, Cemorra.

Greta had delivered two children before, and both were uncomplicated births. But this was different. At 30 years old, she found herself staring into an incubator at a daughter who weighed next to nothing, surrounded by wires, oxygen tubes, and the quiet hum of monitors. The road ahead was anything but certain.

Yet even in that fear, something shifted when the care team at Phoebe stepped in.

“After talking to the doctors and the nurses, they reassured me, made me feel comfortable and not scared. They made me feel okay,” Greta said.

Greta remembers two nurses in particular, Christina and Candace, who made a lasting impression not just on her, but on her entire family.

“Christina just made me feel like everything was okay. She let me know everything that was going on. I really appreciate that. I really do,” said Greta.

There was even a nurse whose name Greta never learned, but whose small act of tenderness she has never forgotten. The nurse would put tiny bows in Cemorra’s hair. “I was so happy about that,” Greta said quietly. “So happy.”

Cemorra’s time in the NICU was not without setbacks. There were days of progress, and then phone calls in the middle of the night sending Greta and her husband racing back down the highway to Albany. There were moments when hope flickered and moments when it nearly went out.

“We still had that fear in us the whole time until she was getting ready to go home,” she said.

But Cemorra held on. And so did her mother. Greta said that for years afterward, she quietly braced herself, concerned that her daughter’s early struggles would translate into learning difficulties or developmental delays.

“I actually thought she was going to be a special needs child, but as she was getting older and progressing and catching on to things so fast, it kind of pulled me back, and I thought, she’s going to be ok,” she said.

What happened instead was nothing short of extraordinary. Cemorra didn’t just develop on pace. She soared. She was placed in gifted classes, excelled across subjects, and ultimately graduated with honors.

“She ended up being in the top 10 out of her class. She actually spoke at the graduation this year. It totally was a different turn. Everything was so surreal,” Greda said.

Tanique Howard-Boone, Greta’s neice, was fresh out of Irwin County High School when she got the news about her aunt’s premature labor in 2008. She didn’t fully understand what 26 weeks meant at the time. She just knew it wasn’t good.

But she was already on her path. Even as a little girl, Tanique knew she wanted to be a nurse; she just didn’t know yet where that road would take her. She earned her LPN and spent years floating between departments from acute care to the emergency center. She became, in her own words, a chameleon, adapting wherever she was needed. The one thing she swore she would never do was Labor and Delivery.

“I had on my contract that I didn’t do L&D. That was the one thing I did not want to do,” Tanique laughed

Fate had other plans. Floated to L&D at Smith Northview Hospital in Valdosta, Tanique found herself in the room when a baby was delivered in distress. She watched as the Phoebe NICU transport team arrived, stabilized the baby, and worked with a calm precision that stopped her in her tracks.

“In the process of watching them stabilize the baby and get everything done, I just became fascinated. From then on, I was like, this is what I want to do,” said Tanique.

She went back to school and earned her RN, specifically to become a NICU nurse. She joined the Phoebe Family, and, within two years, she was training as a neonatal transport nurse, bringing critically ill newborns in from across the 22 counties the hospital serves.

She also pursued and earned her RNC-NIC certification, a credential she describes as the clearest sign to herself that she had found her true calling.

“Out of all the things I’ve done, I’ve never gone to seek certification in any specialty I’ve been in. So, I was like this has got to be something I love. I want to learn more about it. I want to know how I can make it better every day,” Tanique said.

Now a candidate for her Doctor of Nursing Practice with a hooding ceremony scheduled for August 10th, Tanique is on the verge of becoming a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner, a goal she hopes to fulfill right where it all began: at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital.

It was during the reflection portion of her doctoral portfolio that everything came together. She was writing about purpose, about her “why,” when the memory of Cemorra’s birth and journey came flooding back. And then, just weeks ago, Cemorra sat across from her cousin and said something that left Tanique speechless.

“She told me she wanted to be a NICU nurse. And I was like, oh my gosh,” she said.

Tanique paused when recounting the moment, her voice thick with emotion.

“One of my favorite quotes is: the two most important days in your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why. I honestly feel like neonatal is my why. And Cemorra’s outcome, her story not only reinforced that, it gave it even more purpose,” said Tanique.

Cemora Gaskins, now 18, says she has always known about her early beginning. Her mother kept the photos – tiny Cemorra tangled in wires, an oxygen tube in her nose – and she would ask about them as a little girl, the way curious children do.

“My mom told me I was a preemie, a NICU baby. From there, it sparked my inspiration for who I was becoming,” she said.

Growing up, Cemorra played “nurse” with her parents, diagnosing her dad with a backache and recording it on video. She followed NICU parents on social media and read March of Dimes content and was moved by what she saw. She started putting together the dots – the medical bracelets, the tiny bottles, the nurses who made her family feel safe during the most uncertain weeks of their lives.

“I feel like it would be a way of giving back and that was my purpose, to be a NICU nurse. Because there’s something spiritual, something healing about that. I would be serving a great purpose in someone else’s life, just as nurses like Miss Christina and Miss Candace served in my life and my parents’ life,” she said.

This fall, Cemorra will begin her nursing journey at Valdosta State University, the same university where her cousin Tanique trained, with her eyes already fixed on where she wants to end up.

“I would love to work at PPMH because I would love to go back and work in the unit that took care of me. I want to see it through the nurses’ eyes,” she said.

And she has a message for any family who might be sitting where hers once did – terrified, waiting, and hoping.

“Keep pushing. Even though it feels like it may be the end, you have to keep going. Life is not going to stop for you,” she said.

For Tanique, telling this story was never just about celebrating her family. It was about the nurses in the trenches, the ones who show up every day in the middle of someone else’s worst nightmare.

“I feel like sometimes, as NICU nurses, we can get burned out. We almost lose our focus as to why we’re doing what we’re doing. I want them to know, regardless of whatever we may be going through, what you’re doing makes a positive impact in these babies’ lives every day. What we do matters. And we’re making a positive impact in their lives, our lives, and our communities,” said Tanique.

Greta, who has worked as a CNA for 24 years at Palemon Gaskins Memorial Nursing Home in Ocilla, says her daughter and niece have inspired her to consider going back to school.

“I’m actually inspired to go back and get my RN degree now,” she said.

She wants one thing before her daughter leaves for college: for Cemorra to meet the nurses who cared for her as an infant.

“I feel like that’ll be a piece of her puzzle, to meet the people who cared for her.”

For families like the Gaskins, Phoebe’s Level III NICU is more than a hospital unit that, as one of six regional perinatal centers in Georgia, provides neonatal transport, stabilization, and critical care for the region’s most vulnerable newborns. It is a place where life truly begins. It is a place committed to a mission that makes stories like Cemorra’s possible. It is a place that delivers world-class neonatal care to every family, regardless of where they come from or how early their journey begins.

It has been nearly two decades since that 26-week baby girl held on in an incubator while her mother prayed and her nurses believed. Today, Cemorra is walking into her future and walking straight back to the place that gave her that future. Some stories don’t just have happy endings. Some become the reason other stories begin.