23-year-old Becki-Jo Allen and her boyfriend Liam Tierney live in Liverpool, England, with their daughter Indiana. The family was very happy and the couple was looking forward to having more children. So when Becki-Jo found out that she was pregnant, everyone was overjoyed. But what the couple didn’t know was that Becki-Jo’s pregnancy had a huge surprise in store for them.
Once the initial excitement wore off, Becki-Joe quickly noticed that it was going to be a difficult pregnancy. From the very beginning she suffered from terrible morning sickness and headaches that were so bad the couple began to get concerned. During an early checkup Becki-Jo and Liam waited nervously for the results of an ultrasound. They were ready for the worst, but nothing could have prepared them for what they were about to find out.
Becky-Jo was carrying triplets! The couple were shocked and relieved at the same time. Becky-Jo remembers: «It was the biggest shock of my life! We haven’t got any triplets in the family so it came completely out of the blue.»
Fortunately the pregnancy got easier the three boys in Becki-Jo’s belly were developing into perfectly healthy babies. But in the 31st week the couple received a shock: the contractions had started and, although they were healthy, the babies were still tiny and not ready for birth.
Doctors performed an emergency C-section and Roman, Rocco and Rohan were safely delivered with each of them weighing just over three pounds. The boys spent their first six weeks in the intensive care unit until they were big enough to make the trip home to be with their family.
Once the newborns were home people began noticing how similar they looked. Normally this wouldn’t be strange for triplets, but the doctors had told Becki-Jo and Liam that their boys were paternal twins, meaning they had come from separate eggs and would look different from one another. But the parents and their friends and family found it difficult to tell the boys apart and decided to have a DNA test done to find out why.
The results of the test were surprising: the three brothers were actually from one egg and were identical twins! This happens so rarely that the doctors initially found it hard to believe. Eggs dividing once to create twins happens often enough, but and egg dividing into three is a very special phenomenon. But despite their identical appearance, their parents have learned how to tell them apart. «It’s only when they’re asleep that they look the same to me. But they all have completely different personalities. And they’ve all got dark birthmarks between their eyebrows, but Roman’s is slightly darker than the others, and Rohan has got a birthmark on his leg as well,» explained Becki-Jo.
Liam and Becki-Jo wanted more children and they definitely got their wish even if they weren’t expecting them all to come at the same time. The proud parents couldn’t be happier and the big sister is excited about taking on her much needed role as little helper in looking after these three little guys.
It’s safe to say that the next few years will not be boring in this now very full house. But as the saying goes, the more, the merrier!
