Helping expectant mothers is a common occurrence for staff at the MacNeal Hospital Birth Center in suburban Berwyn, but a quintet of staff members are all expecting at the same time in what is a delightful coincidence.
A nurse at the hospital, Vanessa Martinez, was the first to share her pregnancy news with her colleagues.
“I think just even one week of me talking about it, then Carolina was like, 'okay, I can't hold it back.' She's like, 'I'm pregnant too.' Heather's like, 'I'm pregnant.' I was like, 'Well, that’s three,'" Martinez said.
But it didn’t stop there.
“I kind of waited until like 23 to 24 weeks to say anything. So you know, when people were saying, 'I'm pregnant' in the back of my head, I’m like, 'I am too,' said Jannet Avalos, a nurse on the unit for 16 years.
Then Alisha Lopez, another mother-baby nurse in the unit, found out she was pregnant too.
“It's crazy because it was really unexpected. I’m the last out of everyone who's going to be delivering,” said Lopez, who is due with her first baby in July.
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That makes five nurses at the MacNeal Hospital Birth Center pregnant at the same time.
“I'm going to be delivering most likely three of the five, but I’m ready for any of them,” said Dr. Meghan Cox, an obstetrician.
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This will be Carolina Echeverria’s first baby. She’s due in March and she’s getting a lot of hands on training in the nursery.
“I got to learn so much, like doing baths, doing their vital signs, how to feed them, how to breastfeed,” Echeverria said.
With so many of her coworkers also expecting, there are plenty of people to ask questions about pregnancy.
“It takes a village and we kind of just look out for each other. It's cool,” said Avalos, who is expecting her third boy in February.
“It's so different when you're the one that's pregnant. I'm used to taking care of women like after they've had the baby. So it's definitely different being the pregnant one,” Lopez said.
You may be asking what happens when all these nurses go on maternity leave?
“We're able to plan, because we do have one nurse from each unit that'll be gone. There will be staff here to take care of everybody,” said Heather Chavez, a nurse manager.
Chavez will the first one of the group to deliver. She has induction set for late January. This will be her third boy.
Five pregnancies at the same time is a lot, but not the record. Fourteen years ago, seven nurses, all in the labor and delivery unit, were pregnant at the same time.
But MacNeal Hospital is still celebrating this group of moms to be. Coworkers threw a baby shower recently for the four women with babies each due two weeks apart for the next eight weeks.
And if you’re wondering what they’re having, there won’t be any surprises. All five found out and ran down the list for us:
Jannet Avalos – boy
Carolina Echeverria – boy
Heather Chavez – boy
Vanessa Martinez – girl
Alisha Lopez – girl
Congratulations and best wishes to all the moms to be!
