the stork is having a little fun at the Columbus Regional Hospital Birthing Center.
While pregnant patients are pretty commonplace there every day, the center staff also has 15 staff members, including nurses and physicians, who are pregnant. In addition to that, two other staff members have had babies in the last six months, including one mom who delivered a set of triplets.
It’s definitely an “Oh, Baby” situation, said Deanna C. Abel, nurse manager for the birthing center and pediatrics, who joined the staff on April 1 (perhaps not a coincidence).
On her first day, Abel learned that a baby boom was underway among the birthing center and pediatrics department staff, one that includes a couple of the physicians who care for babies in addition to having them. About half the babies expected by the staff are due in late spring and early summer, with another wave in the fall to mid-December.
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So far, the babies expected this year are seven boys, seven girls and one expectant mom is expecting to find out the gender of her baby on Tuesday.
Brooke Dye, a birthing center nurse who is due in November with her first baby, said birthing center patients have picked up on the parade of pregnant nurses who are caring for them as they deliver their newborns.
“I had a patient who told me, ‘Every nurse I had here was pregnant,’” she said. “One of the older women here said she didn’t plan on drinking the water.”
Dye’s husband Blake, who is retired from the military and is completing a bachelor’s degree in biology, said he was curious as to who was going to be around to deliver their daughter in November with so many staff members planning maternity leaves through the end of the year.
On the bright side, Dye said there’s nothing like a pregnant nurse to understand what a member of the “pregnancy first-timer’s club” is going through and the inevitable moments of morning sickness.
“My co-workers are great,” Dye said. “I can just leave the room and go puke and then come back to work. They all know different remedies and that helps.”
Nurse Ashley Trepanier is expecting her third child, a boy, with husband Shane, a Columbus police officer, in June, a sibling for 7-year-old Kayson and 5-year-old Evalyn.
Since she’s among those in the first wave of deliveries expected for summer, she has been watching with amusement as more pregnancy announcements have been made among the birthing center employees.
“For a while it has seemed like somebody was announcing it every week,” she said. “We have a lot of young nurses.”
Trepanier said she did have one patient ask her,” Is everybody up here pregnant?”
“I told that patient, bless her heart, that was my question, too,” Abel said, laughing.
Birthing center nurse Emily Nauert, of Hayden, is 18-weeks pregnant, having a baby with Michael Kinsel. The baby will join sibling Ethan, 5, upon arrival in October. Nauert will find out Tuesday whether she’s having a girl or a boy.
When she learned she was pregnant, Nauert said it as an “OMG” moment, saying she was now part of the clique of CRH Birthing Center expectant mothers.
“It’s just been never-ending, one after another,” Nauert said of the pregnancy announcements. “I think it’s hysterical.”
Saying about half the staff who are pregnant were trying to get pregnant, and the other half weren’t, Nauert said just knowing there are those who sympathize has been a benefit. Her expectant coworkers, and there were at least two others working with her on her shift Thursday, understand what it is like to arrive at work not feeling well, because they have felt the same way.
“They understand our pain,” she said.
Abel said that when all the staff members lined up by due date in front of the hospital in their scrubs for a photo, it was a serious “maternity reality check.”
Nearly all the expectant moms will deliver their babies at CRH, and while on maternity leave, there will need to be staff members in their place, Abel said.
However, the staff of 110 or so within the birthing center and pediatrics is working with Abel to make sure that shifts are covered, and so far, there haven’t been any staffing issues, she said. The birthing center and pediatrics is staffed around the clock.
“Everyone is doing great to fill in and cover for each other,” Abel said. “That’s been very heartwarming to me as a manager.”
Holly Cheek, CRH vice president and chief nursing officer, said the entire hospital is having a little fun with the birthing center nurses’ news. The birthing center delivered 1,283 babies in 2018.
Other hospitals around the nation have announced similar situations in which a certain department, often a birthing center, has a large number of pregnant employees, and CRH is sort of “in the middle” as far as the number of expectant moms, she said.
“Those hospitals are so large — their base is bigger,” Cheek said. “We’re a lot smaller than many of them.”
But Cheek acknowledges that this is probably the first time any department at CRH has had this many staff members pregnant at one time.
There is somewhat of a logical explanation for how this could happen, beyond the obvious. Cheek said hospitals recruit from two nursing classes throughout the nation in May and again in December, and many of those grads are young, female and beginning their careers. Those beginnings also include getting married and starting families, often at the same time.
“These nurses obviously love babies and love children,” she said of the birthing center’s expectant moms. “It seems logical to me that this would happen in our birthing center and they chose this as a specialty.”
Cheek said she is sure the level of empathy for the quirks of being pregnant — morning sickness, tiredness, etc. — remains constant at the CRH Birthing Center.
“We are already kind of a family here at CRH and we are so excited to celebrate with all of them,” Cheek said, as the due dates approach for the staff members.
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To learn more about the Columbus Regional Hospital Birthing Center, go online at crh.org/service-centers/birthing-center
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