California Baby Born on Leap Day Shares Birthday with Dad

A father and his newborn daughter in Carmichael, California, beat all the odds Saturday when it came to birthdays.

Ivan Rebollar Cortez’s daughter, Camila, was born on February 29, which is also known as Leap Day, according to Fox 8.

What makes the day even more special for Cortez is that it is also his birthday.

In a Facebook post Saturday, the staff at Mercy San Juan Medical Center congratulated the new dad and noted that “the odds of a parent sharing a birthday with their child on a leap year is 1 in 2.1 million”:

Nurses dressed little Camila in a green “leap-frog” outfit to mark the special occasion, according to KCRA.

Julius Caesar introduced Leap Day after becoming convinced of the superiority of the Egyptian solar calendar which featured “365 days and an occasional intercalary month which was inserted when astronomers observed the correct conditions in the stars,” according to History.com.

The article continued:

Caesar and the philosopher Sosigenes of Alexandria made one important modification: instead of relying on the stars, they would simply add a day to every fourth year. In keeping with the Roman tradition of messing with the length of February, that day would fall in the second month of the year—thus Leap Day was born.

Caesar added two extra-long months to the year 46 BCE to make up for missed intercalations, and the Julian Calendar took effect on January 1st, 45 BCE.

“There are only about 5 million people in the whole world who were born on February 29, with the odds of being born on Leap Day standing at about 1-in-1,461,” the website read.

Even though “Leaplings” only technically get to celebrate their birthdays once every four years, they “get to be part of an elite group,” the site noted.

Saturday, a total of fourteen “Leaplings” were born at two different hospitals in Houston, Texas, ABC 13 reported.

“Memorial Hermann welcomed 10 little ones on Saturday, and The Woman’s Hospital of Texas welcomed four,” the outlet said, adding, “Just the sight of them will have you jumping for joy!”