historic first
The title of a recent IrishCentral blog post claims Irish American twins born in different years in historic first. It has been widely circulated now, because it is a nice story, but the title is way off. This is not a historic first all. It is neither the only recently born dual-year twin, nor the first time it happens.
BBC News US & Canada has a news story about twins born minutes apart, but in different years. The printed story, titled Twins born on different years after New Year's Eve birth is quite short.
American twins born minutes apart have birth dates on different years. Madisen Karin Lewis was delivered on New Year's Eve and her brother Everette Lewis was delivered in the first moments of 2011.
The twins' mother, Ashley Fansler, agreed to a Caesarean section that would allow the babies to be born on different years.
The news item includes a short video of the happy couple with their children.
ABC News blogger Katie Moisse reports Twins Born in Different Years – Times 3 starts out:
It’s rare enough for twins to have different birthdays. But thanks to six timely deliveries flanking midnight Saturday, three sets of twins will grow up with different birth years.
In Minneapolis — one of the twin cities — Beckett Humenny was born 6:40 P.M. Dec. 31, 2011, followed by his sister, Freya, at 12:26 A.M. Jan. 1, 2012. In Buffalo, N.Y., Ronan Rosputni was born at 11:37 P.M., just 33 minutes before his brother, Rory, arrived at 12:10 A.M. (The Rosputni twins are shown in the photo above.) And in Tampa, Fla., Jenna and Leah Bear arrived at 11:59 P.M. and 12:00 A.M., respectively.
The blog post links to three other stories
Arizona Central seems to be the first blog to post the Associated Press story South Dakota twin siblings born in different years about Kylee Anthony & John Anthony Jr born to John and Jolene Anthony.
The Fox8 story Four Sets of Twins Born in Different Years mentions all the aforementioned twins: Jenna & Leah Bear, Kylee & John Anthony, Ronan & Rory Rosputini and Beckett Hummeny & Freya Peterson.
Dual-year twins aren't unique to New Year's Eve 2012 either.
It happened on New year's Eve 2011 too.
The Mail Online story The twins born in different years: Babies arrive either side of midnight on New Year's Eve
by Catherine Eade tells about two pair of such dual-year twins:
Two sets of twins were born just minutes apart but in different years as 2010 rolled into 2011.
In Alamance County, North Carolina, parents Christy and Marlin Alston were celebrating the birth of a son and daughter born minutes apart.
Ashton Parker Alston was born at 11.58 P.M. on December 31, 2010, while his little sister by two minutes, Alisha Rae Alston, was born at midnight on January 1, 2011.
The twins were born prematurely at Duke Hospital, Alamance County, and are staying in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for observation.
The twins' aunt says their mother didn't expect to deliver the twins at 33 weeks, but added that everyone is in good health.
Meanwhile in Rockford, Illinois, Madisen Carin Lewis and Aiden Everette Lewis were born one minute apart, and so also have different years on their birth certificates.
Madisen was born at 11:59 P.M. on New Year's Eve 2010 and her brother Aiden was born one minute later at midnight, 2011.
Doctors recommended a caesarian section for mother Ashley Fansler, leaving the parents with a choice to make about when their new bundles of joy would enter the world.
'He said if we wanted to deliver one this year and the other next year, we could, so we decided to do it that way, and everything worked out,' said the twins' father, Brandon Lewis.
Dual-year twins are just a special case of dual-day twins.
It is perfectly normal for children to born during the night.
There is always a time gap between twins, so it is not strange for one to be born before midnight, and the other to be born after midnight - and once a year, that midnight is New Year's Eve.
There is nothing intrinsically different about New Year's Eve, it is just the day before the next year on our calendar; if we used another calendar, we would focus on another day. Still, it is fun to think about. If there are dual-day and dual-year twins, there probably are dual-decade, dual-century and dual-millennium twins.
The aforementioned twins born around New Year's Eve 2011 are not only dual-year twins, born on either side of the year, but even dual-decade twins, born in different decades; one born in the 2001-2010 decade, the other in the 2011-2020 decade.
The Gregorian Calendar started a new century in 2001, and that was not only the start of a new century, but the start of a new millennium as well. At least one dual-millennium twin was born on New Year's Eve 2001. This story that can found in several places on the web appears to be from the Boston Herald, but even their own search engine failed to provide a link to the original.
Twins Aaron and Luke Hegenberger were born just eight minutes apart.
What makes their arrival unique is that they were born in different millennia. Aaron was born at 11:53 P.M., Dec. 31, 2000; at the South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Mass., and his brother came along eight minutes later, at 12:01 A.M., Jan. 1, 2001."This is terrific", Dr. Robert Vanderlin, who delivered the twins, told the Boston Herald, "What you have is one born in each millennium.".
The babies came early for Debra Hegenberger of Pembroke, Mass., who wasn't due until early February. She and her husband, John, had been planning to watch the New Year's Eve celebrations on television. "When I got back to the room (after the births), I said 'Geez, we missed the ball dropping.'.", said Hegenberger. The parents said they don't know yet just how they'll celebrate the boys' birthdays in years to come.
Aaron Hegenberger was born on 2000 Dec 31, and Luke Hegenberger was born on 2001 Jan 1. Their birth dates have occasionally been misreported as 1999 Dec 31 and 2000 Jan 1, because of the widespread mistaken belief that the millennium started in 2000.
Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.