It's a baby bonanza!
Eleven hospital staffers at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, New Hampshire, were recently pregnant at the same time, with one having delivered earlier this month.
"It was one person after another, and then here we all are," Kendal Towle, a general surgery nurse practitioner, told "Good Morning America," describing it as "a domino effect."
"We kept asking what's in the water," Serena Swanson, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, joked.
According to certified registered nurse anesthetist Alexa Hayes, the coincidences are remarkable, as it's the first time many of her expectant colleagues are working together in the same surgical services department.
"We hadn't had a lot of people pregnant in many years. And then I had my daughter last year, and then it seems like everybody thereafter got pregnant. I was like, why not jump on the train again? So, here we are," said Hayes, who is expecting her second child in September.
"It's been wonderful to share what I've experienced over the last 16 months and then to be able to share this moment with these wonderful working moms and first-time moms and be able to experience this all together," she added.
The first of the staffers to welcome her child was Swanson, who gave birth to baby Everett via cesarean section on May 9 at none other than Wentworth-Douglass.
"We call ourselves 'the preglets,'" Swanson said.
The next of the "preglets" to give birth will be Jenny Miles, a registered nurse, in June, followed by Jen Jones, a CRNA, in July.
Towle, along with Emily Piche, also an RN, and Sasha Thomas, a CRNA, are all due in August.
In the fall, Hayes and surgical technologists Grace McManus and Madison Smeal are due in September, while anesthesia technologist Elizabeth Sullivan and endoscopy RN Justine Brennan are expected to deliver in October.
"We're very blessed to be able to have this opportunity in our working environment. We feel really honored to work at a family-valued center where we can all be pregnant at the same time and still take our time with our babies afterward, and I think we just feel grateful," Hayes said.
Towle added that it's especially nice to share a new partnership with both colleagues and patients.
"When you work in health care, you inevitably bond with your co-workers over the highs and lows that come with patient care, but to be able to bond with them on a personal level and get to be able to experience this with them is really special," she said.
