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San Jose Baby Born At 11:11 On 11/11/11

SAN JOSE (CBS SF) - At least one Bay Area baby entered the world Friday at the stroke of 11:11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 2011.

A baby girl with the distinctive birth date arrived at Kaiser Permanente's San Jose facility Friday morning in a natural birth, said hospital spokesman Karl Sonkin.

The mother, Tanya Reyes, and the father, are "absolutely over the moon" and everyone is doing well, Sonkin said. The girl, Isabella Aurora Reyes, weighed in at 7 pounds, 13 ounces.

At Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley, officials said that while they didn't have an 11:11 a.m. birth, they did have a baby girl born at 12:12 p.m. Friday, who weighed 6 pounds 6 ounces and had an APGAR score, indicating the baby's condition at birth, of 9-9. To make matters even more perfect, Baby Emma's parents, Elizabeth and Rafael, are both veterans who met in the Army, hospital officials said.

San Jose's Good Samaritan Hospital, meanwhile, reported that instead of the roughly three births that would be scheduled on a typical Friday, nearly a dozen inductions or c-sections were scheduled for Friday.  Labor and delivery staff are wearing "Birthquake" t-shirts—sales of which will support the hospitals neonatal intensive care unit—and will be enjoying cupcakes in honor the occasion, said hospital spokeswoman Leslie Kelsay.

"This spike isn't a tsunami, but it will definitely be a high volume day for us," said Jane Parker, the hospital's vice-president of women's and children's services.

The scheduled births are those that needed to take place this week for medical reasons, but for various reasons parents chose to schedule for today rather than earlier in the week, Kelsay said. Births aren't scheduled before 39 weeks unless a doctor deems it necessary.

At Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, several mothers were poised to deliver Friday morning but the closest one just missed the mark, arriving at 11:12 a.m., said hospital spokeswoman Carolyn Kemp.

Kemp said the hospital had seen around 10 births as of 4 p.m. Friday. The hospital was not seeing any more births Friday than usual, scheduled or unscheduled, Kemp said, but many parents seemed excited about the 11/11/11 birthday.

"Some of them are very into the numerology of it, saying it's a lucky day to have a baby, and others are saying they were just really lucky to have a baby," Kemp said.

In addition to scheduled births, Good Samaritan expected to accommodate an expected 6 or 7 unscheduled deliveries. Kelsay said hospital legends suggest that births tend to spike around full moons and bad weather, both of which are in effect this week, but clinical studies of those effects have had mixed results at best.

Kemp noted that, while Friday's date is significant, what might be even more significant is the date nine months ago—Valentine's Day.

(Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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