Whoever schedules shifts for the intensive care unit at Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa, Arizona, probably experienced a pregnant pause when they heard this news: 16 of the nurses are currently pregnant.
The women, who are all due between October and January, said they didn’t know about the pending baby boom until a few of the expectant moms started a Facebook group, according to AZCentral.com.
But nurse Jolene Garrow joked there was a secret agenda behind their pregnancies.
“We all formulated this plan to have the holidays off!” she told the news site.
Hospital officials promise they have arranged for fill-in nurses when the ICU moms go on maternity leave.
“We’ve been planning for this for months,” Heather Francis, director of nursing for the hospital’s Trauma Neural ICU and Medical ICU, told AZFamily.com.
The nurses’ non-pregnant colleagues are already taking care of patients with conditions (like tuberculosis or shingles) or treatments that are potentially dangerous to expectant mothers, according to the Associated Press.
At a press conference on Friday, the nurses said they depend on the hospital cafeteria to satisfy pregnancy cravings. It has added pickles and olives to the salad bar, CNN reports.
Banner Desert Medical Center isn’t ignoring the kids either. Each of the babies will start life with a onesie that reads: “Relax ... my mom is a Banner Nurse!”
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