Family welcomes rare identical triplets in pregnancy surprise

Mary Studebaker and Shane Perkins were already raising a 10-year-old daughter when they hoped to add another child to their family. Instead, they received a triple surprise.

Key Takeaways:

• Mary Studebaker and Shane Perkins were surprised when they became pregnant naturally, with identical triplets — all boys.

• The couple already had a 10-year-old daughter at home, who is now anxiously awaiting her brothers' release from the hospital NICU. She has made them color-coded bracelets to tell them apart.

• The triplets were born at 31 weeks gestation and weigh between two and three pounds.

The Details:

“Let’s just try for one more,” Mary Studebaker of Texarkana recalled to KTEN. “And then all of a sudden, triplets.” The baby boys were conceived naturally, making the situation even more uncommon.

“This is a rare occurrence,” Dr. Christian Briery, maternal fetal medicine specialist with Willis Knighton Health, said. “It happens in around one in 8,000 to 10,000 pregnancies spontaneously.”  

He added, “Any time this happens, we should celebrate. It’s just a really neat phenomenon.” 

By the night of April 22, the neonatal intensive care team at Willis Knighton Health System was anticipating the babies’ arrival. “Everyone’s been talking about these babies since they were admitted,” Dr. Amanda Bunton of Willis Knighton South, said.

On Thursday, April 23, the Identical triplet boys were born at Willis Knighton in Shreveport, Louisiana, when Studebaker was 31 weeks pregnant. The boys were delivered within a minute of one another.

The births were emotional and memorable for dad Shane Perkins. “I was scared to death,” he said. “I was just holding her hand. Especially when you see, well, one baby comes out, and then another, and then another.”

Currently, each baby weighs about 2 to 3 pounds. All are likely to stay in the NICU for a while longer as they continue gaining strength. 

Meanwhile, the couple’s older child is also excited about the arrival of her three brothers, and has already started helping to keep everything in order to welcome them back home. "My 10-year-old actually made bracelets," Studebaker said. "She has them color-coded — one's green, one's blue and one's orange" to tell the identical triplets apart. 

Zoom Out:

According to Cleveland Clinic, triplets are usually conceived when three eggs are released during ovulation and all are fertilized, or when one fertilized egg divides in a way that gives rise to three embryos. Identical triplets, on the contrary, hail from a single egg that splits, resulting in three genetically matching embryos. As Cleveland Clinic explained, “Babies weighing less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces at birth (2.5 kg) have low birth weight. This raises the risk of health issues, including difficulty breathing.” 

This is because, as Cleveland Clinic noted, "multiple pregnancies typically don’t last as long as singleton pregnancies (one fetus). The average pregnancy lasts 37 to 40 weeks when there’s one fetus. As the number of fetuses increases, the duration of the pregnancy decreases. The average duration for triplets is 32 weeks to 35 weeks.” 

While contemporary culture typically deems unexpected pregnancies or multiple births as burdens to be dealt with, the positive attitudes of Mary Studebaker and Shane Perkins are a potent witness to the value of welcoming children as they come.

The Bottom Line:

Children are not problems to solve, but people to love.

Though the coming weeks will likely be filled with visits from nurses, careful monitoring, long waits, and small milestones in the NICU, this family's story shows that pregnancy is not valuable only when it is predictable or uncomplicated.

Rather, every pregnancy is precious because new life begins from the very moment of conception. Rare pregnancies, like in the case of triplets, magnify the joy of childbirth even more.