There’s a baby boom happening behind the nurses' station at Hospital Sisters Health System St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay.
Fourteen labor and delivery nurses are all pregnant at the same time, creating a one-of-a-kind support system inside the hospital.
“When she said she was pregnant pretty early on… then I was like… I am, too!” laughed labor and delivery nurse, Anna Cody.
Ashlyn Short, Anna Cody, and Molly Van Enkenvort are among the nurses who are expecting.
“Well, I found out Molly and I are four days apart,” Cody said. “I think it's cool, too, because normally maybe people, like, wouldn't know you're pregnant yet, where we all kind of knew each other, was like, was able to, like, support, like, in that way."
“We're all keeping tabs on each other, though," Van Enkenvort said.
Short describes what it's like when their patients notice what the labor and delivery nurses have in common.
“A lot of our patients will be walking down the hallway, and they'll say, ‘there's a pregnant one, there's another one — all the nurses are pregnant!’” Short said, laughing.
Amy Bardon, Director of Nursing for Women’s and Infants and Children’s Hospital at HSHS St. Vincent, said the timing makes it even more meaningful, falling during Nurses Week and just before Mother’s Day.
“Many of them are friends outside of work, and some of them have this as their first baby," Bardon said. "Some of them, it's their subsequent children for them. And so they all have their own story, and they're able to share that and go through this journey together.”
This shared experience strengthens a team in ways that go far beyond the job, they said.
“It's just really special," Short said. "All of these women hold such a special place in my heart, and we have worked together for years. I've been there for some of their other babies, and now we just get to all raise all these babies at the same time."
The nurses tell the Scripps News Group in Green Bay that their babies are all due between May and the fall.
Hospital representatives said they’ve had plenty of time to prepare for the maternity leave absences and have a plan in place to make sure there are no gaps in care for patients.
This story was originally published by Nina Sparano with the Scripps News Group in Green Bay.
