When Brooke Coleman began working as a clinical assistant in Children’s Hospital Colorado’s neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, one of the first things that struck her was how small everything was.

“Everything is so little,” said Coleman, now a first-year nurse in the same unit. “It takes a very niche kind of skill set.”

That specialized skill set includes, among other things: inserting an IV needle into a vein no thicker than a strand of angel hair pasta; taking a blood pressure reading on an arm smaller around than an adult’s thumb; and changing a diaper not much bigger than a Post-it note.

The thought of caring for babies small enough to need miniaturized medical equipment might give one pause. Instead, it drew Coleman toward the NICU subspecialty.

“That’s part of what makes it special,” said Coleman, whose sister was once a Children’s Colorado patient. “I decided this was the place for me. It was a perfect fit.”

Coleman, a recent graduate from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, is one of four first-year nurses who began their careers as clinical assistants at Children’s Colorado and were hired as NICU nurses upon graduation from nursing school — the first such cohort in the hospital’s history, officials said.

The foursome, which includes Pikes Peak State College graduates Ella Hall, Evan Baker and Stephanie Bond, did not make a group decision to return to Children’s Colorado, they said. Each woman, for different reasons, felt a gravitational pull that made them want to make the hospital, and the unit, their professional home.

Baker, who was born at 35 weeks gestation, was once a NICU patient herself. Babies born before 37 weeks of pregnancy are considered premature. Naturally, she doesn’t remember the experience, but by the time she was in middle school, she knew she wanted to be a nurse.

“There had never been a question,” Baker said. “I never had a backup plan.”

Hall applied to be a clinical assistant as soon as she finished her NICU clinical rotation.

“I knew that this was my top choice,” she said. “I was beyond excited to be working with the neonatologists, and for the opportunity to watch and learn from the nurses that were doing what I soon hoped to be doing.”

Bond, the oldest of the four, knew she wanted to become a nurse after she had her own children, one of whom was a patient at Children’s, she said.

“I experienced the parent side of things, so I know how terrifying it can be,” Bond said. “But I also experienced what a difference a good nurse can make.”

The four women share an affinity for one of medicine’s more challenging subspecialties, but that didn’t make them a slam-dunk hire. Neither did their experience as clinical assistants, according to clinical nurse manager Erin Havrilla.

“They’ve probably heard this every day since they’ve been here,” Havrilla began to say before her charges, knowing what was coming, finished her sentence.

“Every day is a job interview,” they said in unison, and laughed.

“It’s true,” Havrilla said. “It was very evident, early on, with every single one of them, that they were highly motivated and wanted to be here.”

That motivation will have to carry them through some dark times, they all acknowledged. NICU babies enter the world far sooner than they are supposed to, and sometimes, despite the best of care, they do not survive. That can take a toll on even the most seasoned health care professional.

“It can be a sad job,” Havrilla said. “But while there is sadness, there’s also joy. Being able to see the tiniest baby go home, and then come running up to you five years later — there’s nothing like it. There’s such a sense of fulfillment in knowing you made a difference in a family’s life.”

Helping a new parent deal with the loss of a baby is difficult, but caring for the family is part of the NICU nurse’s skill set, Baker said.

“I see it as more of a blessing,” she said. “As difficult as it can be sometimes, when things don’t go the way everyone hopes it will go, hopefully a (grieving) family can find some comfort in you.”

Bond, whose parental experience gives her a perspective that few new nurses have, agreed.

“Sometimes we’re the only ones, other than the parents, who get to walk alongside these babies,” she said. “I consider it an honor.”

The ability to take care of an infant that weighs about as much as a can of soda, plus a capacity for calming down nervous, worried parents, is a rare combination, but crucial for a NICU nurse, said associate clinical manager Kelsie Border. Each member of this new, history-making cohort has displayed these abilities, and more, she said.

“You work with the tiniest, most vulnerable patients, as well as some of the most vulnerable families,” Border said. “These are four amazing human beings.”