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Not even going into labor could stop this mom from getting her MBA

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Not even going into labor could stop this mom from getting her MBA
Shannon Kaschak
Genevieve Shaw-Brown
ByGenevieve Shaw Brown
May 24, 2019, 8:02 AM

Shannon Kaschak had to miss her graduation from business school for a very good reason: she was in labor.

But the diploma for her hard-earned MBA wasn't coming in the mail to this mama.

"I had worked hard for three years," Kaschak told "Good Morning America" about receiving her MBA from Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. "I was pretty sad I wouldn't be able to make the ceremony."

Shannon Kaschak received her MBA diploma while in labor.
Shannon Kaschak

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Kaschak was to be presented with her diploma by her father; who also earned his MBA and is on the board of trustees at Sacred Heart University.

Shannon Kaschak received her MBA diploma at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut.
Shannon Kaschak

Her dad, she said, worked it out so the robes and diploma would come to Shannon. It was May 11, and she was in active labor. The nurses at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut took her off her monitors and IVs for about 10 minutes and she walked the hospital hallway to "Pomp and Circumstance."

Shannon Kaschak and her baby, Alice.
Shannon Kaschak

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"It was a lot all at once," she said about the experience of being in labor and graduating at the same time. Her mom and sister were there and her dad was able to present her with the diploma as planned.

Kaschak's baby -- a girl named Alice -- was born the next day. What will Kaschak tell her girl one day about the in-labor hospital graduation?

"I'll tell her she can do anything she sets her mind to."

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