Say, it’s your birthday; it’s their birthday too

Five in Reeve family were born on Nov. 18. Three-weekold Luke was born at Hoag this year.Five birthdays. Four generations. One mega-celebration.

The Reeve family has successfully consolidated nearly all of the gift giving, phone calling and cake cutting into a Nov. 18 birthday bonanza.

There’s baby Luke, father Jeb, 35; grandpa Michael, 59, and Luke’s 80-year-old great-grandfather, all born on the same date. And don’t forget about great-grandma Phyliss Fox, who turned 78 on Nov. 18.

Get ready for the new family chant: “Happy birthday to you and you and you and you and you.”

Luke, the son of Costa Mesa residents Jeb and Sarah Reeve, is the newest member of the Nov. 18 club. He was born more than three weeks ago at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian.

And Luke Reeve is the only member of the Nov. 18 club whose birth wasn’t left up to nature.

“I’m the only one who cheated,” Sarah Reeve joked. “Everyone else did it right.”

Sarah Reeve, who works in South Coast Plaza’s management office, said she didn’t want a child to be born in late fall, because the holiday season is the busiest time for her at the office.

But when she learned this spring of the due date, she figured she may as well root for a Nov. 18 arrival.

“When we found out it was a boy, it was even more exciting,” said Sarah Reeve, 33. “It’s the dad-son birthday thing that is kind of cute.”

Luke Reeve originally was due on Nov. 24. Because Sarah Reeve had a Caesarian section when she had her first child, Carissa, doctors advised that Luke be born through the same procedure.

That put the due date at Nov. 17. But the Reeves had other ideas. The couple convinced its doctor at Hoag to perform the Caesarian section the next day for continuity’s sake.

“I thought, let’s see if we can do it then and stick to tradition,” Jeb Reeve said.

Sarah Reeve and her husband, an electrician at Los Angeles International Airport, were joined by family members on the morning of Nov. 18.

Jeb Reeve and his father, Michael, celebrated their birthdays together at the hospital with a birthday cake, balloons and the anticipation of a new family member.

Since Michael Reeve moved to Idaho more than a decade ago, he and his son hadn’t spent a birthday together, Jeb Reeve said.

They even thought about Luke’s arrival time. Jeb was born at 8:50 a.m.; Michael at 8:50 p.m.

“We didn’t have any say in the timing for this,” Sarah Reeve said jokingly.

Just before 1 p.m., Luke was born.

Phyllis Fox, Sarah’s grandmother who shares the Nov. 18 birthday, lives in New Hampshire and wasn’t able to join the family in Newport Beach for the birth.

While Michael Reeve and Jeb Reeve were in the hospital, the two agreed that for Luke’s first birthday, the family would visit Idaho as a celebration.

Jeb Reeve said Luke has helped bring the family together. He and his wife were divorced for two years before remarrying last October.

Why were they not remarried on Nov. 18? An oversight, he said.

And why isn’t Sarah Reeve born on that date? Bad luck, she said. Still, she’s part of the equation: She and her sister share a May 25 birthday.

The Reeves said they were planning to look into whether their four generations of shared birthdays is any kind of a record.

For now, Jeb Reeve is enjoying his latest present.

“Luke being healthy, dad being there [for his birth], us being remarried again, it was my best birthday ever,” Jeb Reeve said.

20051210ir9enhknWENDI KAMINSKI / DAILY PILOT(LA)Jeb Reeve holds his 3-week-old son, Luke, on Friday. The two, and three others in the family, share a Nov. 18 birthday.