Derisa Hamilton, a nurse educator and mother of two who is originally from Macon, came to Bulloch County over 30 years ago to attend Georgia Southern University. During that time, she met her husband, Keith, who is from Savannah. Together, they made Statesboro their home.
“He didn’t want to live in Macon, and I didn’t want to live in Savannah. We liked Statesboro, so we just stayed.”
Derisa has been at East Georgia Regional Medical Center for three decades. She began as a labor and delivery nurse, and is currently the Perinatal Nurse Educator.
The Hamiltons have two children, a 31-year-old daughter, Katlyn, and a 29-year-old son, Carson. The family doubled their family when Katlyn married husband Jarrod and Carson married wife Regan.
Derisa recalls when both couples told her and her husband they were going to be grandparents. After trying for a year, Katlyn and Jarrod finally found out they were going to have a baby and were due on June 27th. They came from their home just outside of Vidalia to Statesboro for the weekend to tell their family. Meanwhile, Regan and Carson had good news of their own.
“Regan knew she was pregnant, but she didn’t want to say anything because she didn’t want to steal Katlyn’s thunder because she knew she had been trying for a long time to get pregnant.”
Regan and Carson, who live in Statesboro, shared their news not long after that they, too, were expecting a child -- on June 23rd.
Derisa remembers her daughter-in-law saying, “Oh, wouldn’t it be funny if we had the babies on the same day?” To which Derisa replied, “As a labor and delivery nurse, there’s nothing humorous about that whatsoever. How am I going to be in two places at one time? I cannot divide myself.” The family would soon find out how accurate Regan’s prediction would be on a Tuesday in mid-June.
Both women had the same doctor, Lisa Rogers of Statesboro Women’s Health Specialists, and were scheduled to deliver at the same hospital.
Due to complications from a high-risk pregnancy, Katlyn arrived at EGRMC in the evening on June 12th to be prepped for induction the following day. Then Regan came in not long after. She had been in communication with her mother-in-law throughout the day and remarked that something felt different. Little did she know, she was already having contractions.
“We watched her for about an hour, and her water broke,” Derisa said.
Katlyn and Regan had hospital rooms right next to one another. The proximity made it easy for Derisa to run back and forth, able to be there for both her daughter and her daughter-in-law.
“I was actually in Katlyn’s room when I looked up at the monitor and saw Regan push with a contraction, and I was like ‘I got to go!” she shared.
Ryker Turner Hamilton was born to Regan and Carson Hamilton on June 13, 2023 at 10:35 AM. He was 7lbs 15oz, and 21.5 inches long.
Almost exactly seven hours later, William Buford McDonald was born to Katlyn and Jarrod McDonald at 5:46 PM, weighing 8lbs 10oz, and measured 21 inches.
Both babies are doing well.
“You pray for healthy babies anyway, but to have them both be born on the same day in the same hospital and delivered by the same doctor, it’s mind blowing. I still have to catch myself looking at pictures of them and thinking ‘Okay, these are my grandbabies.' I went from nothing to two little bundles of joy,” the new grandma shares.
The babies that have exponentially increased the Hamiltons’ joy come from a family legacy of belief and prayer. “Our kids were raised that you have to walk by faith, not by sight, and these babies were very much prayed for.”
