Leaping Into Life: Babies born Feb. 29 share unique bond

HARLINGEN — Saul Adrian and Letty Flores hoped their baby would be born on Valentine’s Day.

Instead, Alyssa Victoria Flores is a Leap Day baby, one of at least a dozen babies born Wednesday who share the distinction of a Feb. 29 birthday.

Her parents have already decided that next year, Baby Alyssa will have birthday cake on March 1, closer to her mother’s March 6 birthday.

Alyssa arrived at 4:43 a.m., weighing 9 lbs., 6 oz. Her birth is celebrated by her brother Alejandro, 4, and 2-year-old sister Alaina.

Leap Day occurs every four years to adjust the Gregorian calendar. Since each year is actually 365 1/4 days, an extra day is added every four years when those four quarter days accumulate for an extra day, which is added to the calendar on Feb. 29, to maintain coordination with the sun’s position.

Leap Years are those years that are evenly divisible by four. Years that are evenly divisible by 100 are Leap Years if they are also evenly divisible by 400.

At Valley Baptist Medical Center, Maytee Valencia snuggled with her Leap Day baby, Dominic Alexander De Leon, who arrived at 9:41 a.m.

She and her fiancé Cruz De Leon, did not expect 6 lb, 11 oz. Dominic to arrive on Leap Day.

“I really didn’t think about it,” Maytee Valencia said.

But her future mother-in-law told her that she had a feeling the baby would be born on Feb. 29, Valencia said.

The parents said they haven’t decided when they will celebrate Dominic’s future birthdays.

They were originally undecided about the baby‘s name and joked about calling him Skippy.

Now it seems it will work out, Valencia said, because their baby will skip his real birthday for three years.

As of press time, there were seven Leap Day babies born at Valley Baptist Medical Center–Harlingen and five at Harlingen Medical Center.

VBMC-Brownsville reported seven Leap Day babies born there.