36 nurses at Children's Mercy Kansas City planned to deliver babies in 2019. (Photo: Courtesy of Children’s Mercy Kansas City)
We sure love to read about nurses who are pregnant at the same time. The Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery nurses at Children’s Mercy in Kansas City, Missouri, must have set the record, with 36 babies due in 2019.
The nurses care for premature and “the sickest of the sick” babies all day at the Missouri’s hospital, said Jake Jacobson, the hospital’s public relations director. During and after their shifts, the NICU nurses say they take care of each other as pregnant women and moms.
“We can chat about it and vent about it and be excited for each other,” said NICU nurse Michelle Janes, who’s due Nov. 29 and has a 2-year-old son. “Especially those of us who already have kids. Many of us give each other opinions on things. We have a Facebook group and we weigh in on everything from diaper rash to kids crawling out of their crib.”
Janes, 32, of Shawnee, Missouri, wants the sex of her baby to be a surprise. Of the 20 babies born so far, only two have been girls.
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‘Mass of toddlers running around’
Janes said there is always “an email out for some sort of baby shower.”
Because NICU nurses work round-the-clock, Janes said the showers often are held at atypical times, such as a Wednesday morning, to accommodate everyone’s schedule.
Nurses with one or more children bring their children to the shower and also playdates, which they have held at the zoo and swimming pools, she said.
Baby showers are always happening at Children's Mercy in Kansas City, Mo. (Photo: Courtesy of Children's Mercy Kansas City)
“It’s great support and there’s always a mass of toddlers running around,” she said. “And they’re all getting to recognize each other, and that’s fun.”
Longtime friendships, greater empathy
Nurse Allison Ronco, 32, said you can expect a trail of “food on the floor” wherever the nurses have been on play dates.
The critical care education coordinator, who gave birth to son Henry on Jan. 12, said deep friendships have formed among the women and it started years before they became pregnant together.
“We were hired fresh out of nursing school and planned each others’ wedding showers,” Ronco said. “We’ve been through it all together.”
As they care for more than 80 fragile newborns, becoming mothers themselves has helped them develop a greater empathy for mothers and fathers who must leave their newborns in their care overnight in the NICU, she said.
“Once you have your own baby, everything suddenly gets shifted,” Ronco said. “For the most part, we have gotten to go home with healthy babies. And we can really empathize with those moms and the struggle they must go through not being able to.”
Ronco added that the nurses have joked about stories of other pregnant nurses.
“They have nothing on us,” she laughed. “Finally, somebody said, ‘let’s get together and take a picture.'”
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