Nurse Welcomes Daughter in the Middle of a Shift. 22 Years Later, They’re Sharing the NICU in a Different Way (Exclusive)

In 2002, Stacey Giese, a NICU nurse in Wisconsin, was was working her 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift. Pregnant with her fourth child, Stacey’s expected due date was supposed to be a few days later, but it didn’t turn out that way.

“There was an older RN that was working with me,” Stacey, 59, tells PEOPLE, “and she must have seen something in me that made her think I was in labor.” At the time though, Stacey felt fine — but her colleague wasn’t convinced and told her, “Well, yell out every time you have a contraction.’ ”

Sure enough, several hours after her shift started, Stacey gave birth to her baby daughter Hannah at HSHS St. Vincent Children’s Hospital in Green Bay.

Over two decades later, Hannah, now 22, is following in her mother’s nursing footsteps — and in a full circle moment, the two of them have worked together at St. Vincent’s NICU for nearly a year. 

Hannah tells PEOPLE that she heard the story about her unconventional birth from her mother all the time growing up. “I thought [it] was hilarious,” she says, “I know it by heart now.”

On the day she gave birth, Stacey — who has been with St. Vincent’s NICU for 38 years now — kept powering through, even when her contractions were about three minutes apart.

“I can remember saying to myself, ‘Suck it up buttercup,’ “ Stacey says. “I just turned around and thought, ‘Okay, let’s just keep going here, take a couple deep breaths and just keep my head focused on what I’m doing.’ ”

“Then about a half hour later,” Stacey continues, “the charge nurse came in and said, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s getting pretty rough.’ ”

And it wasn’t long before she made a decision, saying, “I’m getting in this bed and having a baby.”

Hannah is the only one of her siblings to become a nurse, a career path she first realized she wanted to pursue while still in high school.

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Since working with her mother at the NICU, she’s learned such things as caring for infants, adhering to standards and procedures, and speaking with parents. 

“It’s been great,” Hannah says. “I’ve learned a lot. I really have a lot of people to lay back on, talk to talk things over. Even the people in the NICU are fantastic.”

For Stacey, having a daughter follow in her footsteps is gratifying “It’s kind of cool that the legacy goes on,” she says. “I know she’s going to be a strong employee, a strong NICU nurse. She’s great at clinical thinking, so she’s in a perfect place for her. So I enjoy seeing her go through that.”

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