Dad welcomes leap day daughter on his birthday
Like father, like daughter.
Mercy San Juan Medical Center was the site of a one in two million double birthday on Saturday. Camila Peñaloza was due on March 3, according to her mother, Jennifer Rebollar Cortez, and her earlier birth coincided not only with leap day, but also her father's eighth "leap day" birthday.
Ivan Peñaloza, 32, called this extraordinary shared birthday an unexpected blessing.
"I prayed to God for my little baby girl and now we are going to share this amazing bond for the rest of our lives and I am just so happy," he said in a statement through the hospital.
Hospital staff presented Camila with a leapfrog outfit and sang happy birthday to her and her father, according to Cortez.
"Having a child is such a special experience already but it has been that much more magical," she said in a statement.
The odds of parents sharing leap day birthday are one in 2.1 million, according to the hospital.
"We feel incredibly fortunate to share in this special, life-changing moment with this family. Our heartfelt congratulations and we wish them a lifetime of love and happiness with their new bundle of joy," Michael Korpiel, the president of the Mercy San Juan Medical Center, said in a statement.
