Kicker: Pregnant nurses

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Nurses at Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa, Arizona say there must be something in the water at the hospital. The intensive care unit is becoming a maternity ward.

Sixteen nurses in the ICU are pregnant.

The nurses say they didn’t plan to become pregnant at the same time. Ashley Adkins was one of the first couple of nurses to announce she’s expecting.

ADKINS: It was me and then found out one other girl. It was just the two of us. I thought this was so exciting, and then suddenly it was just another one and another one.

Word got around about the happy timing. The nurses held an event for the media: an en masse reveal of the sex of the babies.

AUDIO: Boy, girl, boy, girl …

All the babies are due between September and February, so the hospital is planning for a staff shortage.

Even the hospital cafeteria is making changes during this time. Per request by one expectant mother, it’s adding pickles and olives to the salad bar.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) Most of the sixteen pregnant nurses who work together in the intensive care unit at Banner Desert Medical Center pose for a group photograph after attending a news conference where they all talked about being pregnant at the same time, with most of them due to give birth between October and January, Friday, Aug. 17, 2018, in Mesa, Ariz. 

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