Call it a case of history three-peating itself: Newborn Mason Parker arrived in the waning minutes of Tuesday, July 19 — just in time to share his birthday with both his mom and dad.
Mason hadn’t been due to arrive until Wednesday, so parents Jacquie and Paul Parker of Massapequa, N.Y., had been planning to go out and celebrate their mutual birthday with a relaxed dinner.
But Mason had other ideas. He arrived at Long Island Jewish Medical Center Tuesday night, literally in the eleventh hour — 11:30 p.m. — weighing 8 pounds, 4 ounces.
During mom Jacquie’s 24-plus hours of uninduced labor, the couple “received hundreds of messages cheering us on, saying ‘You're running out of time, we don't know if you're going to get the trifecta before the end of the day,’ ” Paul Parker, 32 (as of Tuesday, that is), said at the hospital on Wednesday.
“As we got closer to midnight, we kind of gave up hope,” he told local radio station 1010 WINS. But with half an hour to go, he added, “he came through and we did it.”
“I never thought it would actually happen,” mom Jacquie, 29 (since Tuesday, of course), told the New York Daily News. “I feel wonderful.”
Proud papa Paul, a package designer, called his son’s early arrival the “best birthday ever.”
And next year, Jacquie added, there will be a “big, big party.”