Quick answer: A Cleveland-area mother, father and their newborn twins all shared August 18 as their birthday after doctors confirmed it was safe to delay a planned C-section for several hours. The twins arrived one minute apart at Cleveland Clinic Hillcrest Hospital on August 18, 2023.
What are the odds that an entire family would share the same birthday? For Sierra Blair and José Irvin Jr., this rare coincidence became an unforgettable reality.
Editorial correction: Contemporary reports from ABC News, People and The Guardian identify the parents as Scierra Blair and José Ervin Jr. The verified spellings are used below.
Four members of the same family… all born on the same day! And the surprise is that the twins waited until midnight to share their parents’ birthday!
A family of four shares the same birthday
Scierra Blair and José Ervin Jr. already had a birthday coincidence before they became parents. Both were born on August 18, one year apart.
Sierra was born on August 18, 1992, while José was born on August 18, 1991.
Editorial correction: People reported that Scierra turned 31 in 2022 and José turned 30, confirming that Scierra was born in 1991 and José in 1992. Those are the reverse of the years in the supplied sentence.
Years later, it was their twin children’s turn to share the same birthday as well.
On August 18, 2023, the twins were born at Cleveland Clinic Hillcrest Hospital in Ohio, making August 18 the birthday of four family members.
ABC News summarized the occasion in a report titled “Mom and dad share same birthday as their newborn twins.” The Guardian also reported the story and credited Cleveland Clinic for the family photograph.
Why the twins were born after midnight
But the timing of the birth was no coincidence.
Doctors had recommended a C-section on August 17, but José asked if it would be safe to wait until after midnight so that the twins could share the same birthday as their parents.
The Guardian reported that Scierra arrived at Hillcrest Hospital at about 4:30 p.m. on August 17. One twin was in a breech position, so doctors recommended a caesarean delivery. With only a few hours left before the parents’ birthday, José asked the care team whether waiting until after midnight would be safe.
After the doctors confirmed that waiting was medically safe, they decided to do so.
That detail matters. The family did not ignore medical advice or delay an urgent delivery on its own. The hospital team assessed Scierra and the babies first. The decision to wait was made only after staff said there was no particular risk in delaying the procedure for several hours.
Scierra later told People, as quoted by The Guardian, that waiting was not easy because she could not eat before surgery. She agreed after José and his mother asked her to hold on a little longer. Her requested repayment was memorable: a week of potato salad.
The twins arrived one minute apart
José Irvin III was born at exactly 12:35 a.m., and just one minute later, at 12:36 a.m., his sister, Arria Lanette Irvin, was born.
Editorial correction: Contemporary reports spell the family surname Ervin, not Irvin. People identifies the twins by their full names as José Ervin III and Ar’ria Lannette Ervin. The supplied version omits the apostrophe in Ar’ria and one “n” in Lannette.
As soon as the clock struck 12:35 a.m., the family found themselves celebrating an extraordinary occasion with four people sharing a single birthday.
The Guardian reported that both babies weighed a little more than five pounds. Dr. Jeniffer Eaton, then identified as chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Cleveland Clinic Hillcrest, told the newspaper that it was extremely rare for both parents and their newborn twins to share one birthday.
What are the odds of sharing a birthday?
A widely quoted estimate says the chance that one child shares a birthday with both parents is about 1 in 133,000. That figure assumes birthdays are independent and spread evenly across the calendar.
The full family story is harder to reduce to one honest number. Twins usually share a delivery date, and this C-section was deliberately timed after doctors confirmed that waiting was safe. Multiplying random birthday probabilities would therefore give a misleading impression of how this particular event happened.
The rare part is still easy to understand: two people born on the same date, one year apart, later welcomed twins on that date too.
A later and painful update
Ever since that day, four members of the same family have celebrated their birthdays on August 18 every year.
The sentence above describes the family’s hope after the twins’ birth, but later reporting adds a painful update. News 5 Cleveland reported that José Ervin Jr. was killed in a shooting in October 2024. His family honored him one year later and remembered him as a son, brother and father.
The 2023 birthday story remains part of the family’s history, but it should not be retold in the present tense as if all four still gather for the celebration.
Four birthdays.
One date.
One family.
And maybe one very large birthday cake that’s big enough for everyone.
Frequently asked questions
Which family of four shares the same birthday?
Scierra Blair, José Ervin Jr. and their twins, José Ervin III and Ar’ria Lannette Ervin, all share August 18 as their birthday.
When were the twins born?
The twins were born on August 18, 2023. José Ervin III arrived at 12:35 a.m., and Ar’ria Lannette Ervin was born at 12:36 a.m.
Where were the twins born?
They were born at Cleveland Clinic Hillcrest Hospital in Mayfield Heights, Ohio.
Why did the family wait until after midnight?
José asked whether it would be safe to delay the planned C-section for several hours. Hospital staff assessed Scierra and the babies and confirmed there was no particular risk in waiting until after midnight.
How rare is it for a child to share a birthday with both parents?
A commonly cited estimate is about 1 in 133,000. The exact odds for this family cannot be calculated by simple multiplication because the babies were twins and the delivery time was intentionally chosen after medical clearance.
This article preserves Razer’s supplied wording exactly and adds sourced corrections for names, birth years, the twins’ names and the family’s later history.