When Jamal White Jr. entered the world Wednesday at Regions Hospital he had already accomplished something with extremely long odds. He managed to share the same birth date with his parents, Tiara and Jamal White Sr.
Jamal, Jr. was born on Wednesday Nov. 24, the same birthday shared by his parents, who live in St. Paul.
"He's the best birthday present we could ever had," Tiara told KARE. "Now his birthday will be the only one that matters to us."
Jamal Jr. was born at 10 a.m. Wednesday at a healthy 7 pounds, 13 ounces. He's the first child for both Jamal and Tiara.
"It's just fate!" said Jamal Sr. about sharing the same birth date with his wife and first child.
The couple already shared the same last name when they met in 2009. Jamal Sr. told Tiara, "It's fate. Same last name and birthday!"
Tiara laughed. "I didn't believe him at first. Then he showed me his driver's license and sure enough, same last name, same birthday!"
Tiara, who was born at the same hospital, didn't need any ID for her end of that conversation. Her birth date, 11-24-1989, appears in a tattoo on her left shoulder right below the word "Sagittarius."
It wasn't planned that way and the birth was not induced to create a birthday that will be easy for the White family to remember.
"They told us he was due November 19th," Tiara said, "And that if he wasn't born by the 26th they'd induce labor."
When she went into labor on the 23rd, she thought for sure the babe would come that day.
"It was a really long labor," Jamal said.
"Yes, he hung in there, almost as if he was determined to come on the 24th," Tiara added.
The odds of three persons in the same family sharing the same birthday, according to one mathematician, is one in 133,155. Although the dynamics of that probability equation (365 x 365) would be affected by the fact that young Jamal's parents chose to be together.
"A bunch of people told us that if our baby was born on our birthday, we should should go out and play the lottery," Jamal laughed.
The Whites share that Nov. 24 birthday with many notable people, including U.S. President Zachary Taylor, French artist Henri de Toulouse-Latrec, NBA great Oscar Robertson, jazz pianist Teddy Wilson and architect Cass Gilbert, who designed the Minnesota State Capitol building just two blocks from Regions.
