Lucky number 13?

A couple from Grand Rapids, Michigan, has welcomed their twelfth son, Tucker – yet again failing to break the gender streak that has made the family famous.

Jay and Kateri Schwandt believed that their twelfth child may be a girl, as Kateri went nine days over her due date, something that had not happened with any of their previous 11 boys. However, Kateri – known as Teri – gave birth to another boy, Tucker, who weighed in at 3.52kg, at a Grand Rapids hospital.

Teri, 38, told The Associated Press: “Of course. There was a chuckle in the whole room. I looked at my husband, and we exchanged a knowing smile. When they say it’s a boy, I think, OK, no problem. I’ve got this. We know what we’re doing.”

The family now has 12 boys aged between 21 and newborn. Devout Roman Catholics who don’t believe in using birth control, the Schwandts come from large families themselves – Teri has 13 siblings and has a sister who is mother to 10 children, all of whom are also boys.

Dr. Bob Barbieri, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told the news source: “That’s amazing. This is a miracle. It appears there is some type of genetic determination in some families that have a lot of girls or a lot of boys. It’s not well understood. It’s more than a statistical oddity.”