Couple’s Three Children Share One Birthday

Last month, when his wife was late delivering their third child, Robert Jean-Michel of West Hempstead, N.Y., predicted the baby would arrive on Oct. 2.

His prediction drew laughter, but “when the phone call came early that morning I was amazed,” said Dr. Geeta Narula, Judy Jean-Michel’s obstetrician.

Just as the father had predicted, Natalie Jean-Michel entered the world on Oct. 2--the same date that sister Caitlyn was born five years earlier.

And the same date on which her brother Didier was born a year before that.

“It was a full moon . . . when my water broke. Maybe that’s what brought it on,” giggled the lively Judy Jean-Michel, who delivered each of her children through natural birth.

The odds of three children in a family being born on the same day of the year are about one in 130,000, said Debe Bednarchak, a professor of mathematics at Long Island University in Brooklyn.

“This can happen; it is most unusual, but can happen,” said Dr. Norman Gant, executive director of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Dallas.

What makes it even more unusual is that most women do not ovulate at the same time of the month, he said, and the requisite sperm are not always produced.

“This woman must be dependable, and her husband must be dependable,” Gant said.

Robert Jean-Michel declared the event a simple “work of nature,” something the couple never could have planned.

Their first child had been due on Sept. 23, the second on Sept. 28 and the third on Sept. 22, he said. Somehow they all managed to emerge on the same date.

If it is unusual to have only one birthday for all of the children in the family, it is also convenient. There is only one date to remember and only one party to produce.

Didier and Caitlyn were excited to see their baby sister at Winthrop-University Hospital’s New Life Center in Mineola on Wednesday. Neither minded sharing their birthday with another sibling--after all, they’ve done it for years.

“Everybody was talking about it,” said Didier, shrugging his shoulders, “the principal, the teacher and Caitlyn’s teacher. I think the baby is cute. I wish it was a boy.”

Will they have more children? Maybe, but not on the same day as the others, said Judy Jean-Michel. “I’m going to stay away from my husband in the months of December and January.”