It's a baby boom at one Virginia hospital where 12 NICU employees were pregnant at once.
The dozen employees at Riverside Regional Medical Center — one nurse practitioner, 10 registered nurses, and one unit secretary — are welcoming babies, or have given birth, this year. The women are expecting a combined six girls, three boys and three bundles of joy whose sex is unknown to the moms.
Two of the women gave birth to daughters in March and May, and there's more to go: Four babies are due in July, three in August, one in September, one in October and one in November.
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"This is the most we have had historically in one year in our unit. Five are first-time moms," a spokesperson from Riverside Regional Medical Center tells TODAY.com in an email.
According to Haley Bradshaw, who is 35 weeks pregnant with her second child, a boy, the women share camaraderie.
"We all feel extremely supported and we don't have to worry about much if anyone needs anything," she tells TODAY.com. "We’re all here to step in and help if someone takes a break or has a doctor’s appointment. We have each other's backs."
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"We work better as a team because we know what we're in for," Jackie Cox, who is 36 weeks pregnant with her fifth child, a girl, tells TODAY.com.
With 52 nurses employed in the NICU, only a few pregnant employees overlap during any given 12-hour day or night shift.
Cox says being pregnant together has deepened their friendships, whether through discussing pregnancy problems or baby names.
Cox and Bradshaw say they plan to work until the end of their pregnancies — and it'll save a trip to the hospital. Bradshaw will be a returning patient, as she delivered her first child at the hospital.
In the meantime, seeing patients’ reactions to their bellies is always fun.
“They laugh it off with us,” says Bradshaw.
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