Something’s in the Missouri water. Just in time for American Thanksgiving, a dozen families have much to be thankful for.
Setting a possible record, St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City welcomed not one, but 12 sets of twins.
It’s believed that this is the most sets of twins the hospital has cared for at one time.
“There is no time here at Saint Luke’s that there has been 12 sets of twins,” Kayla Anderson, a registered nurse at the hospital, told Good Morning America.
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“There are nurses here who have been here 40-plus years and at no time can they remember that there were 12 sets of twins at the same time.”
The hospital confirmed to Global News that all sets of twins were born five to 14 weeks early, somehow perfectly aligned to be at the hospital at the same time.
Families of the newborns were from Kansas City and as far away as Saint Joseph, Mo., Harrisonville, Mo., and Emporia, Kansas.
The coincidence has seemingly provided new families with extra emotional support from other parents walking into this new and unique chapter of life, too.
Whitney and Brian Riley, new parents to Camden Parker and Callie Ann Riley, have been able to bond over their set of twins with other parents.
Tyler and Jenna Williams’ twins will be staying at the hospital for another 11 weeks, until Jenna’s original due date.
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Despite the long wait to bring their babies home, it’s been a pleasant stay thanks to the nurses at the hospital.
“Everyone here at Saint Luke’s has been fantastic,” Tyler told KSHB-TV. “From the top-down, I feel like we’ve had as good of an experience as we can expect dealing with our early birth.”
Helen Ransom, a former neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) mom of multiples, donated her time to take photographs of the families, a keepsake for their time spent there.
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Life in the NICU is different for every family, the hospital said in a statement shared with Global News.
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“One of the great things about this special twin shoot was that we have such a beautiful cross-section of the reality of multiples in the NICU,” it said.
“It was a great variety and an accurate reflection of life in the NICU.”
An estimated 390,000 babies are born each year in Canada. Around eight per cent — or 31,200 — of these babies are born prematurely.
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