Congratulations, it's a Cancer! For these parents, a baby's zodiac sign matters.
Ariana Mezzepella didn’t want her son to be a Gemini, the zodiac sign that runs from late May to late June and is symbolized by twins.
“I was like, he can’t,” Mezzepella tells Yahoo Life. “He can’t be a Gemini.”
While her physician initially wanted to induce delivery on June 19, 2012, Mezzepella, who works in accounting in New Jersey, knew the last day of Gemini season was the 20th, and moved the induction to the 21st. However, it was to no avail. Her now-10-year-old son is "a full Gemini," she says.
"They say Geminis have two faces, you know?" she tells Yahoo Life. "And he's exactly sweet and sour. He's two different people at any given time. It's wild.”
While Mezzepella’s story took place in 2012, her story is less unusual in 2023, when some birthing people are doing their best to coordinate their children’s conception and delivery based on the zodiac chart.
Jen C., a social worker in Fairfield, Conn., was hoping to avoid having her third child be a Leo. A Cancer herself, she knew that Leos and Cancers tend to have an intense relationship.
"I really was hoping she would be a Virgo," says Jen, who was due at the end of August. "I did have concerns about her being a Leo."
Ultimately, her daughter ended up being born on Sept. 5 of this year — a full week late, but in Virgo territory.
While she personally doesn’t believe there are bad signs in the zodiac, Kerry Pieri, the Buffalo-based author of the new book Baby’s First Zodiac, says certain astrological signs tend to "get a bad rap."
According to Pieri, Gemini is the sign parents are most likely to avoid. However, the author notes that it's more than just the day of birth that determines the details of one's astrological chart.
“Your entire chart is built around the exact time you’re born and the place that you’re born," she explains. "Trying to control that is impossible, and why would you want to? It's all part of the fun.”
It wasn't a specific astrological sign that concerned Katherine Swanson all that much ahead of her daughter's birth.
"Honestly, Mercury retrograde worried me more than my daughter being a Gemini," says Swanson, a Los Angeles-based attorney who gave birth in 2020. Known as the period when Mercury appears to travel backward across the sky, Mercury retrograde is seen by the astrologically minded as a time of confusion, delay and chaos. Indeed, Swanson's delivery proved to be a challenging one, filled with miscommunication with her anesthesiologist. But after the delivery, she put her daughter's birth stats into an astrology app to see what popped up.
"Cancer sun, double Aquarius! It was mostly for fun, but the write-up said that she would be sensitive and also motivated to make big social change," says Swanson. "In July 2020, I couldn't think of anything to hope for more than a kid who wanted to change the world, especially given my own career as a public interest attorney."
Despite some parents avoiding the Gemini sign, some actively seek it out. Brocka Nolen, a personal executive assistant in Dallas, says she was specifically conceived to align her birth with the Gemini window. Her mother was an Aquarius, and her father was a Libra.
"These three are the air signs of the zodiac," the 41-year-old explains. "The intention was to complete the circle, as our personalities would be compatible."
While her parents divorced when she was a toddler, Nolen considers the method a success, since she ultimately got along great with her parents.
"I would say it worked in this regard," says Nolen, whose died mom three years ago. "I am very close to my father, and my mother was my best friend."
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