'You're one in 200 million'
2008-03-06 19:02
Manhasset - When they get older, Logan, Eli and Collin Penn may blanch at the notion that they wore nail polish to their first news conference, but right now it is the only way their parents know how to tell the boys apart.
The identical triplets were born at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island, New Yorkon Wednesday, an event so rare that an obstetrician estimated it might happen just once in 200 million births.
The triplets' mother, Allison Penn, was impregnated with just one embryo through in-vitro fertilisation, said Dr Victor Klein, a specialist in multiple births and high-risk pregnancies who delivered the boys.
That embryo split in half, and then the one half split again, he said.
Klein said: "This is the first one we're aware of in the literature in the country in which they only put back one embryo and a woman gave birth to triplets.
"Most people put back two or three embryos and you just never know."
Identical triplets are born at a rate between one in 60 000 and one in 200 million, depending on the research, Klein said.
'Her mouth was wide open'
Allison Penn, 31, said she and her husband, Tom, 46, had been trying to have a baby since they got married about four years ago. Although she once thought of having several children, the disappointments over four years revised her dreams.
"When it took us so long to get pregnant, I just assumed we were going to have one and that would probably be it," she said. "So I thought one would be good."
And when she and her husband were told three youngsters were on the way?
"I looked over at Allison and her mouth was wide open and her eyes were like saucers, and she didn't say a word," Tom said. "Then I realised that it was possible, and then I started to laugh."
He confessed he couldn't get over the irony.
To help tell them apart, the boys have a dot of maroon nail polish on their fingers. Logan Thomas has a mark on his thumb; Eli Kirkwood has polish on his forefinger, and Collin McGuire has a mark on his middle finger. Logan may have a problem with a nonfunctioning kidney, but the other boys are healthy, doctors said.
Allison, an education specialist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, said she has not decided whether to return to work.
"That's one of those 'one-day-at-a-time' issues," she said.
- SAPA