There are just some things you can't cancel.

And that's where Dr. Brianne Mahoney came in Saturday as she braved the blizzard to deliver babies as the only obstetrician at her hospital.

"We practice as if we're in the middle of a blizzard every night," the 33-year-old doctor at MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham told the Herald. "We have to plan for the worst at every moment."

Last night Dr. Mahoney delivered one baby girl. The good doctor was up through the night - delivering six more babies, including one in the ambulance and another by emergency C section. Three more moms are in labor today. That's potentially 10 newborns in one endless shift.

The hospital was offering free food, and the moms and infants were all tucked in. Dr. Mahoney was ready.

"We're probably in the safest place we can be," she said. "We're cozy here."

A few snowflakes weren't about to shake her confidence.

"Laboring moms sort of have a primal instinct to be in a cave. It's normal to burrow in," she said. "It makes sense to give birth in a snowstorm."

She said one of the birthing rooms looks out on a pond and, between pushes, she and her patient gazed out at the swirling flakes.

Yet the storm did weigh on her mind.

"The scariest part was those still at home who may go into labor," the doctor said. "One patient called from Rhode Island saying she was bleeding." The OB sent her to the nearest hospital.

Dr. Mahoney, who has a 2-year-old girl of her own named Maggie, was one of the unsung heroes who couldn't skip work this weekend.

But she didn't dwell on that. Instead, she spoke of the nurses and administrators who showed up, too.

And she spoke of the new moms and their new babies.

"Every kid has a story when they are born," she said. "These kids will be watching Nemo and will always remember."

- MCT