Incredible Baby Boom at Hospital When 31 Staffers Give Birth to 32 Babies in Span of 1 Year
The birthing unit at a hospital sees a lot of babies, which, frankly, shouldn’t surprise anyone. Despite that fact, one hospital in Michigan had a shocking number of babies last year — but not in the way you might think.
Thirty-two may seem like an unusually low number of births for a hospital — until you realize that number does not refer to patients who gave birth but to workers in the birthing unit who had their own little ones in 2018.
“It’s like one in five,” confirmed one of those moms, Gabii Sunder, telling KARE 11 just how many of the workers this baby boom involved. “It’s definitely is (sic) a thing up here.”
There was a unique sense of familiarity and camaraderie among the women since they all worked in the same area and could compare notes and baby bumps on the daily.
“It’s nice to know that your co-workers know and understand what you’re going through and will back you up and are there for you,” Ashley Thoennes, nurse and mom of baby #21, told Fox 5. “It’s a special thing that we have going on here.”
With 32 babies born in 2018, it makes sense that these announcements would be constant, and everyone seemed shocked that they just kept happening.
Gabrielle Sunder, health unit coordinator and mom to baby #11 said more and more pregnancies kept popping up: “You’d walk down the hallway and there’s all of these bellies and people were like, ‘Holy cow — there’s another one.'”
“Seemed like every day we’d come to work, it’d be like, ‘Hey, who’s pregnant?'” said Courtney Brevik, another nurse and new mom.
Of course, with the announcing mostly over and the belly comparisons well underway, the attention turned to the birth tally, as everyone waited to see which baby would greet the world next.
“We have a whiteboard in our break room and every day when we’d walk in, everybody would make a point to look at the white board to see if there’s another name added,” explained nurse Kallyne Harren.
Tasha Johnson, nurse and mother, said that they just “kept coming,” adding that “You’ve got to love babies to be up here.”
Some were even on the floor when the contractions really started hitting. Fadumo Hassan said she had to leave her shift because it was time to give birth, and the nurses who relieved her of her position were also pregnant, causing some questions from the patient.
“When I went into labor I was actually working,” she said. “And then the next nurse who relieved me to go to the patient was pregnant – and then the other one was pregnant. And the patient was like, is everybody pregnant?”
And yes, they’ve heard all the jokes. “Everybody has mentioned that,” said Harren, “that it’s something in the water. That’s the joke. Don’t drink the water, you’re gonna get pregnant.”
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