Many area hospitals over the past month have experienced a number of unprecedented, never-before-seen things — like the number of patients being seen, intubations being done or other grim results of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That remained true at St. Peter's Hospital on April 2, as workers there had something happen that they had never seen. But this time, it was for a much happier reason.
That's because amid all the death and soaring number of coronavirus cases, two New Jersey sisters at the same medical center gave birth just hours apart, on the same day.
Kerry Foote and Katelyn Scott are now cherishing their newborns, Lea Rose Foote and Lilly Jay Scott, who came into the world only seven hours apart.
"Very, very uncommon. I don't know that I have ever had sisters deliver on the same day," their doctor said. "Certainly around the same time, but never on the same day, seven hours apart. That's pretty amazing."
Foote said that she was "convinced" it was going to happen this way from the start. "That was my secret plan," she said, jokingly.
Both sisters knew there was a a good chance they would be have their children at St. Peter's around the same time period, with due dates just one week apart. But they never could have predicted going into labor during a once-in-a-generation pandemic, which of course makes things a little more complicated.
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"The things that you usually might be able to celebrate like this, you can't. If we had wanted to, we can't bring the sisters together just because we're trying to maintain that proper distance," the doctor said.
Scott thought she and her sister would be able to spend time together before or after giving birth, which for obvious reasons was unable to happen. They weren't even able to speak face-to-face, so the two tapped on the wall and talked on Facetime.
"We at least got to be side-by-side in rooms, which the novelty of it we enjoyed," Scott said.
Babies Lily and Lea are perfectly healthy and happy at home now, with their older siblings thrilled to be reunited. Scott and Foote's parents haven't been able to meet their grandchildren yet, but both sisters consider themselves lucky everyone is healthy.
