Meet the babies born in the path of totality during the 2024 eclipse

Ashley Lucas knows exactly what she’ll tell her newborn baby boy, Wade, about his special birthday when he gets older: “The whole world was watching outside while we were so focused on you,” she told USA Today.

Wade was born at Christ Hospital Medical Center in Liberty Township, Ohio, a few hours ahead of the total solar eclipse. He was one of the special newborns the hospital system dubbed a “Total Eclipse from the Start,” and as such got to enjoy a themed onesie as well as other eclipse-related perks for newborns and their families.

The Ohio newborns weren’t the only ones born in the path of totality, which in the U.S. spanned from Texas to Maine. Sol Celeste Alvarez arrived at the Methodist Health System in Mansfield, Texas, at 1:04 p.m., minutes before totality began. Her parents, Carlos and Alicia Alvarez, even encountered pre-eclipse traffic on their way to the hospital.

Elsewhere in Texas, Hannah Marsden had been looking forward to experiencing the eclipse when her newborn son Case had other ideas, making his arrival on Monday during the event. Marsden and her partner Clayton Croarkin spent the eclipse in the delivery room, emerging to a “flurry of excitement” as everyone else in the hospital rushed outside to look at the sky.

New Lenox, Illinois, was outside the path of totality but still experienced about 94% of what those in the path of totality saw. At Silver Cross Hospital, a newborn named Maddix was born to parents Jessica and Glenn at 1:54 p.m., the peak of partiality in the area.