Leap Day Babies Talk About What It’s Like To Have Feb. 29 Birthdays

ACROSS AMERICA — On Thursday, around 200,000 Americans will finally have a chance to celebrate their true birthday. It’s leap day, an extra day tacked on at the end of February every four years to reconcile the solar calendar.

And celebrate these “29ers club” members do. They celebrate on off years, too, usually on Feb. 28, but sometimes on March 1. But on leap years, they celebrate with exuberance.

“They don’t understand it,” Middletown (New Jersey) Patch reader Kim Somerville said of non-leap year babies in a Patch survey that asked readers about their leap day birthdays. “But us leapers get it. Feb. 28th is our go-to birthday. March 1st would be too late!”

Across New Jersey Patch reader Lisa Klemens’ daughter isn’t so sure.

“Our daughter is technically turning 3 this year,” Klemens said. “On a year that isn’t a leap year, we usually celebrate February 28 and March 1 — still can’t figure out which one she wants to use as her ‘fake birthday.’ On a leap year like this, we will do something bigger for her since it is so special.”

Reading (Massachusetts) Patch reader Mary Schroeder has been out of the country either studying, working or traveling since leap year 1992, when she turned 20.

“This year’s trip will make it my eighth real birthday overseas — I’ll be turning 52 in Vietnam,” Schroeder said.

“It’s a milestone birthday every four years,” said Erica Travis in New Jersey. “It’s extra special because the day actually exists.”

But her birthday is also a bit problematic for the Morristown Patch, Parsippany Patch and Maplewood Patch reader. As do many “leaplings,” or “leapers” as they’re sometimes called, Travis observes March 1 as her legal birthday. The legal thinking is that Feb. 29 follows, Feb. 28, so on non-leap years, the person’s birthday leaps ahead to March 1.

“For years, it kind of bothered me that I was getting wished a happy birthday by so many friends and acquaintances on social media the day before my legal birthday because the 28th was always my cousin’s (same birth year) birthday,” she said. “At some point, I started to embrace it even though my alternate legal birthday was March 1st. So now on non-leap years, I celebrate on both days!”

Leaplings’ birth stories are sometimes unusual.

In Illinois, Batavia Patch and Naperville Patch reader Amber Jirsa can’t decide which is weirder — that she was born in the backseat of a car on the way to a Mississippi hospital, or if the birthing chamber was a Pinto, a 1970s vintage car with a design flaw that sometimes caused its gas tank to explode on impact.

A 2023 Illinois regional teacher of the year, the Batavia High School English teacher tells her birthday story to her students every four years. She sometimes has to answer questions that date her — for example, “What’s a phone booth?” — when sharing the part about her uncle using a gas station pay phone to let the hospital know she’d already been born.

• Read more: Batavia Leapling Unsure What’s Weirdest About Her Birthday

Leaping Leaplings!

The odds of being born on leap day are about 1 in 1,461. But what are the chances of two leap-day babies, other than twins, being born to the same family? Around 1 in 2 million.

Across Virginia Patch reader Tiaudra Shaw thinks her leap day birthday is special, but what makes it more so is that she shares it with an older brother.

“He was born two Leap Days (eight years) before me,” Shaw said. “It makes for a really unique sibling bond.”

Mimi Shapiro, who reads Ardmore-Merion-Wynnewood (New Jersey) Patch, Narberth-Bala Cynwyd (Pennsylvania) Patch and Chestnut Hill-Mt. Airy (Pennsylvania) Patch, has seen the same dynamic in her circle.

Shapiro’s friend, Katherine Eck, was born on leap day. Four years later to the date, her friend’s brother was born. The sibling leaplings have birthday parties every Feb. 29, and celebrate in other years on either Feb. 28 or March 1.

Middlesex (New Jersey) Patch reader Terry Wagner almost had two leap day babies. Her first child, Jackie, was born Feb. 29, 1984. She recalled in an interview with Patch that as her due date loomed on leap day eight years later, she told her care team, “I’m not doing this again.”

She repeated it. “I’m not doing it again.” And she didn’t. Doctors had told her she’d need a Cesarean section, so her daughter Maggie was born March 1.

North Fork (New York) Patch reader Marilyn Corwin has twin sons who were born on leap day. They celebrate every four years with big birthday parties.

In Connecticut, Fairfield Patch and Stratford Patch reader Mikki Iannacone and her sister are twin leaplings. Preemies, they were supposed to be born in April. This year, the twins will turn 10 by leap day calculations — or 40 in actual years.

“Growing up, we would share birthday cake, and when it was a leap year, we each got our own cake,” Iannacone said. “We are both school teachers, and our birthday always turns into a math lesson.”

Also, Iannacone pointed out, the principal at her school is a leaper, too.

Leapling Sara Neidig, a Long Islander who reads West Islip Patch and Babylon Village Patch, and the doctor who delivered her share a leap day birthday. Neidig was born on leap day 1960, about 3½ weeks past her mother’s due date.

One advantage of being born on leap day is a three-day celebration, Neidig said. As a kid, she celebrated on Feb. 28 and her aunt celebrated it on March 1, meaning she got presents both days. On leap years, it was a gift -giving trifecta.

Somerville, the Middleton Patch reader, has always considered her leap day birthday “the one ‘unique’ thing about you that you can use in a ‘getting to know you’ meeting.” She still has the 29ers Club paperwork her mother filled out.

When Somerville started looking around at her circle of friends, some of them shared a common bond.

“When my next-door neighbors moved in, their daughter was born on leap year, and a friend of mine married a man born on leap day,” Somerville said.

This year, her birthday cake won’t have fractions on it. That’s a favorite birthday prank of her husband’s.

Brandon (Florida) Patch reader Carmen Melendez is surrounded by leaplings, too.

“My daughter and my uncle were both born on leap day,” she said. “For my daughter, she was two weeks early, and before leap day 2012, I said, ‘I hope she isn’t born on leap day!’ ”

She wanted her child to have a birthday every year. To compensate, the two 29er family members get a big party every four years.

‘The Lucky Ones’

Temecula (California) Patch reader Allison Lurkins' daughter is finally turning "five," so what better way to celebrate than princess party style?

"It feels good to finally make it to 5 years old," she told Patch. "Being born on Leap Year (Feb. 29) is actually my favorite 'fun fact' to share about myself."

North Fork (New York) Patch reader Kaitlyn Ferris considers herself “one of the lucky ones to have this rare birthday.” She’s a February baby, so she celebrates her birthday on the 28th in non-leap years.

That’s her husband’s birthday, too, “so we share a birthday together for three years in a row until we each get our own, and then I celebrate on the 29th!”

Woodbridge (New Jersey) Patch reader Stephanie Tune has big plans for Thursday.

“This year, our son will finally have a true birthday. He is still too little, age 4, to understand the significance of his birthday, but is excited this year for the celebration,” Tune said, explaining the family is planning a trip to the circus to mark his “first” birthday.

Roswell (Georgia) Patch reader Erica Stevens’ son, Henry, will celebrate his birthday on the actual date he was born this year for the first time. His birth four years ago on Feb. 29 was an auspicious sign, she said.

“I always marveled at Leap Day being a special day as the 366th day to balance the calendar, appearing rarely but purposefully,” she said. “I couldn’t believe how lucky it was that he was actually born that day.”

The family plans to celebrate at Disney World, the first of many leap day adventures in the years to come.

“Every year, we will have a big party or trip and give him a little frog figurine,” Stevens said. “We also celebrate by eating Krispy Kreme donuts, since they delivered five dozen free donuts to us at the hospital for his birth.”

Bittersweet Birthdays

Not all leap day babies have doting parents who make a big deal of their birthdays every four years. Encinitas (California) Patch reader Ed Coonce, who grew up in the Indiana foster care system, told Patch in an interview that in all those years, from his childhood until a few years after he’d come home from Vietnam, did anyone acknowledge his birthday.

Coonce, who will turn 76 on Thursday, had his first leap day birthday party in 1972. It was thrown by his girlfriend at the time, who decided it was time to make up for lost celebrations. Coonce has celebrated since, with quirky exuberance — such as the time he wore a tutu and crown at his “sweet 16” party.

In leap year. birthdays, he’ll be 19 on Thursday.

“If I was walking around acting like I was 19, someone would call the police, I’m sure,” he said. “I would probably be taken into custody and subjected to a mental evaluation.”

Instead, he and his wife will go to dinner at a restaurant they’ve never tried and take in a movie.

• Read more: A Foster Kid’s Leap Day Birthdays Overlooked For Years

Leap day will be bittersweet for Bobbie Bregman in Pennsylvania, whose father would have been 100 on Feb. 29, but missed the milestone by a couple of years.

“That was his wish but, unfortunately, he died in 2022,” said Bregman, who reads Upper Dublin Patch, Upper Moreland-Willow Grove Patch and Hatboro-Horsham Patch. “When he was 4 years old, a newspaper ran an article showing him and several other people whose birthdays were all on February 29th. I may still have that newspaper article.”

Tredyffrin-Easttown (Pennsylvania) Patch reader Meg Rafter was born on leap day 1968. “I love my birthday,” she said.

She’s something of a local celebrity.

“There were six of us at Bryn Mawr Hospital, and we were on the cover of the Mainline Times,” Rafter said. “When I was 4, they did a reshoot with four of us. Again when I was 8 they did something, I think. Was on Comcast cable news when I was 16. It was really special.”

Dr. Patrica M. Young, a Northbrook (Illinois) Patch reader, likes to joke that she’s still a teenager, though she’ll turn 80 on Thursday — which she finds “unbelievable” when he thinks about it.

“As an adult and young mother, I held ‘unbirthday’ parties during the off years for my women friends, and they brought their children,” Young said. “Later, I’d get a group together to meet for dinner, even during my late-in-life medical training.”

Now, mixer games are a staple at her multigenerational birthday parties. The last time she partied on leap day was in 2020, right before the pandemic shutdown. That year, her guests brought childhood snapshots placed on a magnetic board and guests had to identify each other by the decades-old photos.

“I have a new mixer game idea for my upcoming celebration,” she promised.

Leap Day Love

Greek, Ukrainian and other folklore suggests it’s bad luck to get married on leap day. Don’t tell that to Fair Lawn-Saddle Brook (New Jersey) Patch readers Nicholas and Jacqueline Messina, who were married on Feb. 29, 1964.

“We always went out to eat with our four children and our 10 grandchildren, but this year, we will celebrate in our home because my husband had a severe stroke, which leaves him home-bound,” Jacqueline Messina said. “At 82 and 79 years of age, we are still thrilled to celebrate our special day — the big 60.”

Gloucester Township (New Jersey) Patch reader Kimberly Guadagno and her husband plan to spend their “fourth” anniversary in Hawaii. They got married in 2008, went to Cancun, Mexico, in 2012 and Jamaica in 2016. They didn’t celebrate in 2020 because the coronavirus pandemic was just taking hold.

Alpharetta-Milton (Georgia) Patch reader Lisa Gelber didn’t get married on leap day but it’s still one of the most romantic dates on her February calendar, even if it is only every four years. And every year, February is her anniversary month.

She and her husband met on Feb. 29, 1992, and were married on Valentine’s Day in 1994.

“This year is big, as we celebrate 32 years together, and 30 years of marriage,” Gelber said. “We love celebrating the day we met every four years on Leap Day! We treat Leap Day as big as a wedding anniversary.”

Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow (New York) Patch readers Jody Rholena and Cedric Smith practically had their entire wedding planned on leap day 2020 when it occurred to her, they’d never actually decided to get married.

“Generally,” Rohlena told Patch in a phone interview, “you get engaged before you plan your wedding.”

Everything about the proposal was as upside down as the world turned out to be that year. And their wedding in April was perfect in its simplicity, with waves of support for the couple penetrating the isolation of the pandemic.

On Thursday, the couple will seize “the opportunity to create a tradition, a special thing that happens every four years,” Rohlena said.

A champagne toast will be included, “but beyond that, I’m going to leave that to him,” she said of her husband. “Since I nudged him to ask me to marry him, he can surprise me on our engag-a-versary.”

• Read more: Couple’s Leap Day Engagement As Upside Down As 2020