ABC7 NewsA little girl born in Maine is thought to be a very lucky baby indeed after she was born at 9:19am on September 19, 2019 (or 9/19/19).
This is known as a palindrome birthday, where the date can be read the same way both backwards and forwards. Regarded by some superstitious individuals to be a fortuitous omen, palindrome babies are sometimes believed to enter this world with a pinch of luck.
This alone would mark the birth of little Madison Smithgall as highly unusual. However, there is yet another slightly spooky quirk to her origin story, with the newborn measuring a highly coincidental 19 inches in length.
As reported by the Sun Journal, Madison was born at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston; the second child of Erin and Andrew Smithgall.
Madison’s birth had originally been scheduled for 9am but doctors reportedly asked Erin if she wanted to delay for 19 minutes on account of the interesting date.
Madison’s proud father, Andrew, told ABC 7:
The doctor asked one of the nurses ‘hey what time is it?’ And they were like it’s 9:18 right now and then her head ended up popping out just before it was 9:20 so it was 9:19 in the morning right when she came out.
Remarkably, it would appear young Madison is already bringing a little luck to her family. As reported by the Sun Journal, Andrew bought two scratch tickets following his daughter’s birth, and won $20 from each one.
ABC7 NewsMadison’s auspicious birthday marked the very last day of the very last palindrome week of the 21st century (September 10, 2019 – September 19, 2019). Indeed, unless you’re planning on having your head cryogenically frozen, the last palindrome week in many of our lifetimes has now passed.
However, there are still a sprinkling of stand-alone palindrome dates on the horizon for prospective parents looking for a bit of good fortune along with their baby shower gifts.
According to the timeanddate.com:
As long as you write your date in the m-dd-yy format, every century has 9 years with 10 Palindrome Days in a row.
These years are always in the second decade of the century. For example, every year between 2011-2019, 2111-2119, and 2211-2219 will have 10 consecutive Palindrome Days. This is true for previous centuries as well.
This naturally gets more complicated when the dates are written in the mm-dd-yyyy format, which would mean there would be just 12 palindrome days in the whole 21st century; the next being February 2, 2020, or 02/02/2020.
LAST #PalindromeWeek of our lifetime! #AManAPlanACanalPanama pic.twitter.com/p4JcHbLtjC
— Callie Field (@CallieField) September 13, 2019
Congratulations to Erin and Andrew on their adorable new bundle of luck!
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Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.