A New York woman gives birth to three identical triplets - an event so rare it's expected to happen once in 200 million births

PATCHOGUE, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (MARCH 5, 2008) - A New York couple had the surprise arrival of identical triplets last week, a rare event, and occurring after the couple had undergone fertility treatment where only one embryo was implanted in the mother.

The odds are if you implant one embryo in fertility treatment, you will only have one baby, and the odds for identical triplets which come from the same egg are - well, one in two million.

Sitting next to her husband, Tom Penn, Wednesday morning (March 5) with her triplets in identical baby carriers seated in front of them, the proud mom said the family is doing well despite the surprise and the quick arrival back home.

"They are doing amazingly well. We were told expect them not to come home for several weeks. They were born so healthy they came home with us and we were hoping for a little time to prepare but here they are. It's been wonderful," said Penn.

Allison gave birth to identical triplets Collin, Eli and Logan on Wednesday, February 27, 2008.

Having triplets was a surprise because the couple thought that by implanting just one embryo during fertility treatment, they were controlling against the possibility of having multiple births.

"We were really hesitant to do the whole fertility treatment because we didn't want multiples. So when we finally went to that route that we were going to take the conservative approach. With in vitro you can really control - or so we thought - how many babies come out by putting so many embryos in and we put one embryo in expecting one baby," said the mother.

One of the triplets, Logan, only has one working kidney but otherwise the boys are considered perfectly healthy. Tom Penn estimates the triplets will go through ten thousand diapers a year. Thankfully, North Shore University Hospital where the babies were born is donating two years worth of diapers.