When Mary Kidd started working for Bon Secours nine years ago, it wasn’t long before she learned she was pregnant with her second biological child.

The director of patient access at Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View has four children, two of them stepdaughters, ranging in ages from 9 to 22.

“I found out I was blessed enough to have a fourth after two weeks of employment,” Kidd said.

Luckily for Kidd, she had recently landed a job with — according to Working Mother magazine — a great place for working mothers.

The magazine recently named Bon Secours Hampton Roads, as part of Bon Secours Virginia, one of its Working Mother Best 100 Companies.

It’s the 15th consecutive year the magazine has honored Bon Secours, gaining the health system entry into the magazine’s Hall of Fame.

Bon Secours Richmond had made the list since 1999, before Bon Secours Virginia — an amalgam of Bon Secours Richmond and Bon Secours Hampton Roads formed in 2008 — decided to pursue the magazine’s list as an integrated health system for the first time this year.

“I am incredibly proud of this distinction by Working Mother and consider it to be well deserved,” Bon Secours Virginia CEO Peter J. Bernard stated in a news release.

“Our leadership and our employees work together in our ministry to ensure our environment is both supportive and compassionate, while challenging us to advance our skills, education and innovation to bring our communities world-class patient care.”

Kidd said the strain of returning to work as a mother with a newborn was greatly eased by her employer. After four months off work, she was phased back into her role.

“I had a flexible work schedule,” she said. “I was able to … share my job with other teammates, to allow for doctor’s appointments, well-baby checks, interviewing day care providers” and so on.

“The resources were helpful; the networking with all the other working moms was beneficial.”

Now that her children are all older, Bon Secours offers flexibility with other things moms continue to juggle after their children start walking and talking, such as afterschool activities.

“My stepdaughter is homecoming princess at her school,” Kidd said. “I will be flexing my schedule this Friday to go to her homecoming game.”

Bon Secours Virginia says four in five of its workers are female. Programs supporting them, it says, include recently expanded paid maternity leave, paid adoption assistance, college scholarships for employees’ children, ongoing job development and advancement opportunities, and job flexibility including the phasing back in after maternity leave and job sharing that Kidd cited, compressed work weeks, telecommuting and shifting schedules.

“They support whatever your needs are with your child,” Kidd said.