The triplets' mother, Allison Penn, was impregnated with just one embryo through in vitro fertilization but the embryo split in half and then one half of that split again. The couple, Penn, 31, said she and her husband Tom, 46 had been trying for four years to have a baby.
The identical triplets were born last Wednesday at North Shore University Hospital under Dr. Victor Klein, a specialist in multiple births and high risk pregnancies. Penn is a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service where his wife, Allison, 31, also works as an environmental educator.
A North Shore University Hospital is now donating a two-year supply of diapers for the boys. The couple estimates that the boys will need 10,000 diapers a year. Allison Penn's mother, Marianne McGuire of Manchester, N.J., has also stepped forward to help the babies with the eight feedings a day and other chores.
The babies, unusually large for triplets, weighing respectively, 4 pounds 12 ounces, 4 pounds, and 4 pounds 11 ounces, went home Sunday. Each of them wore a dot of nail polish on a different finger so their parents could tell them apart. Except for Logan, who may have a problem with a non-functioning kidney, all the children are healthy, doctors said.
