Sisters-in-law have babies on same day, in same hospital with same doctor
In a surprising coincidence, sisters-in-law Caitlin Crowe and Emily Morello discovered they were pregnant with boys at the same time. In an even bigger coincidence, they gave birth to their sons on the same day at the same hospital with the help of the same doctor.
Caitlin Crowe, 32, and her husband Brendan, 28, of Babylon, announced their pregnancy on Easter, unaware that Emily Morello, 33, and her husband Rich, 35, of Sayville, were also expecting. When the Morello couple announced their own pregnancy a few days later and compared due dates, they were shocked: baby Morello was due Nov. 21 followed by baby Crowe on Nov. 22.
"In my mind I was like, 'Oh my God, I am due November 21. What is going on'?" Emily Morello said. "Everyone was like, 'They’re due a day apart? What are the odds?'"
But Mother Nature had other plans. Liam Crowe was born at 12:28 p.m. Thursday. His cousin Tristan Morello made his debut about 11 hours later at 11:48 p.m. While Caitlin Crowe was being checked in and evaluated for a C-section Thursday, she saw the Morello couple enter the waiting room for Emily’s induction.
"Leading up to telling our family, I was saying it would be so funny if Emily and I were pregnant at the same time, not ever thinking we would be literally pregnant at the exact same time," Caitlin Crowe said.
By chance, they were put in neighboring recovery rooms directly across the hall from each other at South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore, an example of serendipity in a line of other coincidences the family has noticed: the Morellos' 18-month-old Charlotte was born on her Aunt Caitlin's birthday and Rich Morello’s father knew Caitlin Crowe's family in Queens when he was growing up, but Rich Morello and Caitlin Crowe never met until after they married their spouses.
Emily Morello and her brother Brendan Crowe work for their family's Lily Flanagan's Restaurant Group with their three other siblings. The couples were already close, but the shared pregnancies and births of their sons have strengthened their bonds even deeper, both couples told Newsday. They took a family vacation to Hawaii together over the summer, where Caitlin Crowe said she and her sister-in-law bonded over being six months pregnant together.
While the couples are still buzzing with excitement over the dual births, they also are daydreaming of the future holidays, vacations and shared birthdays the two families will experience together. Matching outfits "will most definitely" be planned, Rich Morello said. Brendan Crowe agreed, saying the closeness would enable the boys to grow their cousinly love and friendship.
"They have to be friends now," Emily Morello said. "It's just going to be crazy experiencing them going through the same things at the same time and just sharing that with my brother and my sister-in-law and my nephew. It’s just going to be awesome."
Brinley Hineman covers the Town of Hempstead and the City of Long Beach for Newsday. She previously was a reporter in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a West Virginia native.
