Sydney - A 46-year-old Australian grandmother has given birth to naturally conceived identical triplets in what doctors said was a one-in-10-million case. The three "99.9-per-cent" identical boys - Cooper (1,570 grams), Kyle (1,660 grams) and Jordan (1,610 grams) - were born at 34 weeks gestation by Caesarean section Thursday in Brisbane.
Janelle Perry and her husband, Robert, already have a 4-year-old daughter. Janelle Perry also has four children in their 20s from a previous marriage as well as two grandchildren.
In October, the Perrys had given up hope of having another baby after trying unsuccessfully for two years. The doctors had given them a 5-per-cent chance of conceiving naturally.
"We thought, 'Oh, well, it'll probably never happen.' We had sort of given up," Mrs Perry told the Courier Mail newspaper Tuesday.
But the Perrys now face the challenge of nurturing triplets after births that her doctor described as "one in 10 million."
Queensland Fertility Group's David Molloy told the newspaper that the chances of having identical triplets at 46 was "probably the same as winning Gold Lotto."
"I'll probably have to use different coloured nail polish on them to tell them apart," Mrs Perry was quoted as saying in the Courier Mail. "I don't want to get them mixed up. We have got to get a whiteboard so we can write down who's been fed and how much. Getting into a routine, that's the main thing."
