8/08/08 Trifecta

Since there is a baby born every minute, it only stands to reason that a baby would be born on 8/08/08 at 8:08. But when that baby also weighs 8 pounds 8 ounces, it becomes an anomaly. But that's not all! There wasn't just one baby that hit that trifecta, there were two!

First, there's Xander Riniker of Lisbon, Iowa.

(Courtney Sargent/The Gazette)

From GazetteOnline.com:

CEDAR RAPIDS - Chad and Heather Riniker of Lisbon thought the coincidence couldn’t get any greater when their son was born at 8:08 a.m. today — 8/8/08.

Then his birth weight was announced: 8 pounds, 8 ounces.

“They called the time and everyone said, ‘wow, 8:08 a.m.,’” said Chad Riniker, 34. “Then they put him on the scale ... it worked well with the theme, I guess.”

Xander (pronounced “Zander”) Jace Riniker was scheduled to be born at St. Luke’s Hospital by Caesarean section at 7:30 a.m. today, but an emergency C-section before Heather Riniker’s delivery pushed back the schedule.

“I have no idea what the odds of that would be,” Chad, a quality assurance manager at LimoLink in Marion, said of the coincidence. “I would guess slim.”

The child isn’t their eighth — Heather, 31, has two children from a previous marriage and they have two together — but he is the eighth grandchild for Heather’s parents, Lesa and Ken Bulman of Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.

Baby born 8-8-08 at 8:08 a.m., weighs 8 pounds, 8 ounces from GazetteOnline.com on Vimeo.

And then there is Hailey Jo Hauer born in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

Photo by Lauren Radomski

From The Fergus Falls Daily Journal:

Talk about a memorable birthday: A Fergus Falls family is welcoming a baby girl born at 8:08 a.m. on the eighth day of August, weighing in at eight pounds, eight ounces.

Lindsay Hauer’s cesarean section was scheduled for 8 a.m. Friday morning at Lake Region Hospital and began right on the dot. When hospital staff told her the time of her daughter’s birth, Hauer thought they were pulling her leg.

“I thought they were just joking,” she said. “I didn’t believe them when they told me.”

“The time was to the minute,” said Hauer’s husband, Joe.

Imagine Hauer’s surprise when, still in the operating room, she received a call from staff in the hospital’s birthing suite, where Hailey Jo Hauer was being measured and weighed.

“I had the scale on grams at first,” said Jenny Harstad, Hauer’s nurse. Based on the baby’s weight in grams, Harstad estimated Hailey would weigh-in within the eight-pound range. She later joked she’d hoped to find significance in the baby’s length as well.

“I was trying to shrink her down to 18 inches,” Harstad said. Instead, Hailey measured 19.5 inches.

Back in the operating room, hospital staff resolved to buy lottery tickets later in the day.

“My anesthesiologist said to me, ‘Do you realize this is once in a million? This will not happen anywhere else,’” Hauer said.

Hailey is Lindsay and Joe Hauer’s second child. Evan Hauer, 16 months, will meet his sister Saturday.

“We’ll introduce him tomorrow and see how it goes,” Joe Hauer said.