3 grandchildren born 15 minutes apart in same hospital

As proud grandma Pat Geraghty watched the nurses weigh, measure and take the footprints of her newborn granddaughter Kyenna, happy tears streamed down her face. She had three times as many reasons to be so happy. In the space of one Thursday morning, she had not only gained one new granddaughter, but, rather unexpectedly, three. “I almost died,” she says. “What a great day. What a miracle.”

Pat and her husband, Dan, had thought it was pretty cool that their two children, Tony and Jess, were both expecting babies. They were even more delighted when they learned their kids’ due dates were exactly one month apart. Tony and his wife, Tessa, were expecting their third child Aug. 19. Jess and her husband, Dave Elliott, were expecting twin girls to arrive Sept. 19. But nature has a time clock all its own. All three babies wound up being born Aug. 12, just minutes apart and a few rooms away from each other.



“I kept saying, ‘Three babies in less than 15 minutes? I can’t believe this,’ ” Pat says. Sidney Malin Elliott, just 3 pounds, 10 ounces, was born first, at 11:26 a.m. Sienna Grace Elliott, who weighed 3 pounds, 11 ounces, was born one minute later. The babies were healthy but tiny, so they were whisked off to Sanford’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Pat, who had been in the waiting room, was asked by Jess’ husband, Dave, to go out in the hall. “As I came out to the hall, Tony was in the nursery holding up a baby girl,” Pat says. “I about died.” Kyenna Margaret had arrived at 11:42 a.m., in a room just kitty-corner from the Elliotts’ room. She weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces and had a shock of dark hair. Even the nurses were amazed at the sudden influx of Geraghty babies. They thought it was a huge deal,” Jess says. “It was cool that they were so into it.”