With over 35 years experience as an OB/GYN with Crittenton Hospital Medical Center in Rochester Hills, Michigan, it’s safe to say that Richard S. Duff, MD, has delivered a lot of babies.
And it just so happens that 23 of those babies all came from the same family.
Dr. Duff’s impressive legacy started when Kim and Tim Bogert of Lapeer delivered their first of six biological children with him. Their family quickly grew to include seven adopted children (who were not delivered by Dr. Duff) and eventually, 18 grandchildren who were.
One of the Bogert girls, 25-year-old Maggie Payne, a stay-at-home mom from Lapeer, MI, had the most recent delivery with Dr. Duff. According to Payne, her __parents hadn’t aways planned to have such a large family. “My dad wanted a big house in Birmingham with two kids,” Payne tells Babble. “They compromised and had 13 kids.”
The entire family gathered in the hospital’s lobby in November to take a photo [above] with the doctor who was responsible for bringing almost every single one of them into the world.
Payne’s youngest, a baby girl, was the most recent Bogert grandbaby to be delivered by Dr. Duff.
“When you have a streak going like this, you have to keep it going,” Dr. Duff laughs. “I’ve had the amazing opportunity to be there for all of them.”
Payne had a scheduled C-section due to her diastatis recti, which caused the baby to be in a sideways position. Through everything, Dr. Duff helped keep Payne calm when she became overwhelmed and emotional. For Payne, there was nothing more comforting than knowing she was in the best of hands. From his “awesome” sense of humor to the fact that he’s such a pro at what he does, Payne says there is simply nothing “not to love” about Dr. Duff.
“He stopped what he was doing to sit down and talk to me,” Payne remembers. “He made everything feel so personal and that meant so much to me.”
With Dr. Duff’s guidance, Payne welcomed her daughter, Mathilda, right before Thanksgiving. Instead of spending the day feasting, Payne spent the holiday snuggling with her sweet baby in the hospital. (Which really isn’t too bad a trade-off when you look at those cheeks, right?)
Little Mathilda actually joined two other cousins with November birthdays, as Payne was the third Bogert sister to deliver a baby with the family doctor that month. (A fourth sister is due in April.)
All three sisters — Katie Nichols, 34, a mom of six, Tatiana Walton, 27, a mother of two, and Payne, now a mom of three — had been cared for by Dr. Duff during their pregnancies and would often pass each other in the waiting room at his office for their pre-natal check-ups, where the mischievous doctor couldn’t help but have some fun with the sisters.
“He likes to tell us all, ‘You’re the prettiest and my favorite Bogert girl,'” Payne laughs. “He likes to get us to argue over who’s his favorite.”
Dr. Duff says that he knew that he always wanted to be an OB/GYN, and loves that he can get to know his patients and care for them throughout their lives. As for the Bogerts, the doctor has nothing but admiration for the family he has become so close to over the years. Calling the family “remarkable,” Dr. Duff says that seeing the Bogerts welcome six children and then go on to adopt seven more children — some of whom have special needs — has been inspiring.
A father to six children himself and grandfather to four active grandkids who spend a lot of time at his house, the doctor says that he is “utterly amazed” at how effortlessly the Bogert family has made raising their 13 children look.
“They just roll along and enjoy it and they don’t see anything remarkable about what they’ve done,” he notes. “They are just genuinely good people.”
Payne notes that she and her husband, Drew, 27, a destructive weld inspector and part-time reserve police officer, recently moved onto the Bogert’s family farm to help her __parents care for her four adopted sisters who have Down syndrome, as well as look after the animals.
The entire family is looking forward to celebrating Christmas together on the family’s 10 acres, where they will all spend the night together and get a special visit from St. Nick himself on Christmas Eve.
And as it would turn out, Dr. Duff tells Babble that he most definitely has no plans of retiring anytime soon and is game to deliver more Bogert babies in the future.