These identical twins gave birth at the same Cambridge hospital 20 hours apart
Identical twins Rachael McGeoch and Beccy Pistone joked about having their kids at the same hospital on the same day after they received due dates two weeks apart. They didn’t expect it to actually happen, but when McGeoch had difficulties delivering her child, they found that the solution was each other.“We kind of both helped each other through,” Pistone said.McGeoch lives in Charlestown and decided to give birth at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge with a midwife, according to a statement. She hoped to convince her sister to do the same, but Pistone lives on the Cape and picked a hospital closer to home.On August 13, hospital staff decided to give McGeoch, who was two weeks past her due date, labor-inducing medication. Three days later McGeoch still hadn’t had the baby, and her sister decided that she needed to be there.“I just felt terrible that I couldn’t go and be with her because we knew that if we could just be together then everything would be fine,” Pistone said.
Left: Rachael McGeoch and her husband, William Bubenicek , with wife baby boy William Bubenicek. Right: Beccy and William Pistone with baby girl Andi Pistone.
On August 15, Pistone and her husband decided to drive to Boston. They arrived at 1:30 p.m., and McGeoch went into labor only hours later. Pistone followed, and Mount Auburn staff admitted her, placing her in the room next door.
“That was really, really cool, and I can’t find the person to attribute that hard work to,” said Margie Coggins, director of the Division of Midwifery at Mount Auburn. “But it was really important to everybody here that that happened.”
Pistone heard her sister’s son, William Charles Bubenicek, delivered at 10:41 p.m. She cheered and knocked on the shared wall, Coggins said.
After McGeoch’s baby was born, Pistone’s labor slowed. The next day, after speaking with nurses, McGeoch brought her son to Pistone’s room so that her sister could meet the new baby. Just over an hour later, Pistone’s daughter, Andi Isabella Pistone, was born at 6:54 p.m.
“The nurses and doctors and midwives were just really good about encouraging the whole process,” Pistone said.
Later that night the sisters, their children, and the fathers were reunited at 10:30 p.m., according to the statement.
