Carrie Zirbes, mother of three, had seen her share of ultrasound images. She knew right away that something was different about the ultrasound to confirm her fourth pregnancy. 

There was the usual fluttering of the heartbeat, but also an odd blob. As Carrie and her midwife looked closer at the baby, they got a wave. 

“All of a sudden out of the background comes this wiggling hand,” Carrie said. “So we had a baby in the front and then a wiggling hand in the back." 

The wiggling hand belonged to a second baby. Carrie was pregnant with a rare form of twins. 

Six years ago when Lissa Dahlheimer delivered her first child by emergency cesarean section, the sight of her newborn daughter being whisked away from her left her feeling unsettled.  

“It felt like everyone else saw and touched my baby before me,” she said. 

With her second child two years later, Lissa planned a different experience. The lights were low. Music played softly in the operating room. The environment felt gentle. 

When Lissa was pregnant with her third child and learned about the option for a maternal-assisted C-section, her decision came easily: Yes! 

Oliver Gilpin is an 11-year-old who loves sports, science, four-wheeling, and ice fishing, but for two years, severe acid reflux prevented him from enjoying school and activities – until a pediatric gastroenterologist in a bowtie performed a first-in-the-world pediatric procedure that finally gave Oliver some relief. 

When he was 8 years old, Oliver started vomiting multiple times each day. He’d complain that his stomach hurt, and he had a burning sensation in his throat. 

Tina Gilpin brought her son to his primary care provider near their town of Finlayson, Minn., multiple times over the span of six months. They tried medication and carefully tracked what Oliver was eating and drinking to see if they could identify a trigger for his acid reflux.