A hospital hiked the price of their healthy baby's birth by calling it an 'emergency'

As a conservation biologist, Caitlin Wells Salerno knows that some mammals — like the golden-mantled ground squirrels she studies in the Rocky Mountains — invest an insane amount of resources in their young. That didn't prepare her for the resources she would owe after the birth of her second son.

Wells Salerno went into labor on the eve of her due date, in the early weeks of coronavirus lockdowns in April 2020. She and her husband, Jon Salerno, were instructed to go through the emergency room doors at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colo., because it was the only entrance open.

Despite the weird vibe of the pandemic era — the emptiness, the quiet — everything went smoothly. Wells Salerno felt well enough to decline the help of a nurse who offered to wheel her to the labor and delivery department. She even took a selfie, smiling, as she entered the delivery room.

"I was just thrilled that he was here and it was on his due date, so we didn't have to have an induction," she says. "I was doing great."

Gus was born a healthy