Daily Mail, By DAILY MAIL REPORTER, 15th October 2010
Michigan housewife Barbara Soper defied extraordinary odds when she gave birth to daughter Cearra Nicole on Sunday, October 10, 2010.
The date, 10-10-10, means that Mrs Soper and her husband Chad are now the proud parents of three children with memorable birthdays, after Cearra’s sister Chloe was born on 8-8-08 and her brother Cameron on 9-9-09.
Statistics experts say that the pure mathematical odds of such an achievement are more than 50 million to one.
 |
| Amazing odds: Barbara and Chad Soper show off their third child, Cearra, born on 10/10/2010, with Chloe, born on 8/8/2008 and Cameron, who was born on 9/9/2009 |
'She’s our own little miracle,' Mrs Soper, 36, said. 'Chloe is lucky number eight, Cameron is lucky number nine and she is our lucky number 10.'
Despite the neat pattern of their children’s birthdays, the Sopers insist it was never planned that way.
Cearra arrived almost a month prematurely after Mrs Soper developed clots in both legs and doctors decided that the baby had to be induced.
And the arrival of Cameron came two weeks early last year because hospital staff did not want to risk a repeat of the haemorrhaging that Mrs Soper endured when Chloe was born in 2008.
'He wasn’t a planned baby at all, he was a miracle,' she said. 'He was actually due on September 20.'
Meanwhile Cearra 'is feeding well' and is 'a trooper' according to Mrs Soper. Her 33-year-old husband took her to the Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids the day before the birth, when obstetrician Andrew Van Slooten decided to begin the procedure to induce.
The baby girl was born at 6.53pm on Sunday, fulfilling a sequence that the Sopers admitted they thought would be 'neat' but had not dared to hope for.
But, despite the long odds, the reality is the accomplishment is not quite so remarkable according to Philip Stark, a statistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
The window for such a sequence covers only the first 12 years of a century, and, 'given that the first birth occurred in that window, the probability is not as astronomical as you might be compelled to think,' he says.
'The chance you get depends on the assumptions you make.'
He said that more realistic odds would be about 2,500 to one, allowing 11 months between births.
The Sopers, meanwhile, say they are not tempted to complete a quartet and aim for another birth on November 11, 2011.
'Three is plenty - we don’t have any more planned,' Mrs Soper said.
No comments:
Post a Comment