Celebrating Milestones At St. Alexius - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

More and more babies continue to be born at St. Alexius in Bismarck.

For every 5,000th child born at the hospital, that baby is named a milestone baby.

Last year the hospital celebrated it's 80,000 birth and today they're well on their way to celebrating the 85,000.

Travis and Jill Eckroth expected a fair amount of attention when Kinley was born one year ago what they didn't expect is that Kinley would be the 80,000th birth at St. Alexius.

"It's pretty special it will be something she'll always be able to remember," Jill Eckroth said.

"It was exciting you know we found out after we got home that a friend of ours from Carson, theirs was the 75,000 baby," Travis Eckroth said.

Kinley was even given some keepsakes to remember her special birth at the hospital.

"80,000 baby hat, we took quite a few pictures with that the first few days," Jill said.

The total number of babies born at St. Alexius today is about 81,420 since the hospital started tracking births.

"In the past couple of years we've seen significant increases in the number of deliveries we've been doing, we do typically 2/3rds of the deliveries in the region and our numbers have grown about 100 per year --- so we're getting closer to that 85,000 mark which will be our next milestone celebration," Director of Women's and Children Services, Stephanie Goroski said.

So the question is, will the Eckroth's have another milestone baby?

"We plan to have more, I don't know if we're aiming for any milestone baby again or anything," Jill said.

What they are aiming for is a boy.

Kinley celebrates her first birthday, tomorrow.