douglets

Identical or fraternal? A little triplet genetics!

One of the most common questions I get asked about the girls is if they are all identical. Our typical reply is that Harper (Baby A) and Emerie (Baby B) are identical, because they shared a placenta, and that Reagan (Baby C) might be, because she had her own placenta but looks awfully similar to her sisters.

To that end, we decided to do DNA chromosome testing to find the real answer, are the Doublets really all identical, or is Reagan fraternal to her sisters?

A little background from my research on this topic.  Many people ask me if multiples run in our families- this actually doesn’t matter unless the girls are fraternal. Why? Fraternal multiples involve more than one egg being fertilized by more than one sperm, a trait that can be passed down on the mother’s side of the family.  Identicals, on the other hand, start from one egg splitting and in my case, that one egg split once, or twice.  One fertilized egg splitting occurs because of the mother and is often called “biological luck.”

The DNA test, ordered online, involves cheek swabs for each baby.  We did this a couple weeks ago and sent them back for lab testing.  Each baby is swabbed twice to ensure the samples are usable and correct.  The results display two lines of DNA for each baby, one line from me and one from Craig. Twenty-four genetic markers (called loci’s) are analyzed, and if the results depict the same numbers, then they are officially identical triplets. More info is available on BioGene’s website at https://dna-paternity-testing.com/twin-zygosity-test/.

So the answer on the report?  Drumroll please….with 99.9999999% accuracy, the girls are monozygosity (MZ) triplets. Monozygosity is a fancy term for identical, meaning Reagan is, in fact, identical to Harper and Emerie!  How cool is that?

According to my MFM (maternal fetal medicine) doctor, with two placentas and three separate sacs in utero, we had about a 30% chance that the girls would turn out identical. The odds that spontaneous triplets would turn out to be identical? There are a lot of differing statistics online for that, anything from 1 in a million to 1 in 200 million.

A few things I’ve learned regarding identicals:

Do identical babies have the same fingerprints? The short answer, no. Fingerprints develop around the fifth month in pregnancy, and are influenced by several factors, including amniotic fluid and sacs, bone growth, and womb pressure. So in the case of my girls, Emerie was shoved in the corner by Harper, meaning her fingerprints will be different, although probably similar to her sisters who had a bit more space.

Are there other distinguishable differences? Yes, even if they are slight and not easily noticeable.  One difference is the eye irises. While all the girls have blue eyes, their irises may have slightly different patterns.

Why do identical triplets have physical differences if they have the same DNA? This question is pretty easy- while DNA matches on a cellular level, both nature and nurture cause varying changes as the girls grow. Nature (genetics) and nurture (environment) both have “skin” in the game (haha!).

One article explained it more clearly for me, using pie : “Think of it this way–when I bake an apple pie, it turns out a little different each time. The shapes of the apple pieces are never quite the same. Maybe the stove is a little hotter, or I add slightly more sugar. Maybe a distraction like the phone ringing keeps me from taking it out of the oven exactly when I planned. I use the same set of instructions every time. But each pie is still unique because differences in the environment make it is impossible for me to follow the instructions in exactly the same way. So identical twins are kind of like two pies made from the same recipe. They are more similar than pies made from different recipes, say apple and blueberry. But if you look closely, they are still not exactly the same. They will always have some physical differences due to differences in their environment (https://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask142).”

So what other differences can happen? Heights and weights will vary, because it depends on how much one is eating or exercising in their environment. For example, Emerie is technically identical to her sisters, but was born over a pound smaller, due to a smaller umbilical cord connection than Harper. Does that mean they aren’t identical? No, it is just a nature difference.

Harper and Emerie both have strawberry hemangiomas (in different places), but that doesn’t mean they aren’t identical. Hemangiomas are a collection of blood vessels close to the skin’s surface that are considered a birthmark and typically fade as the child gets older.  That is a nature change that occurred after birth.

How do we tell them apart? When we were just home from the hospital, we put teal nail polish on one of Reagan’s fingers and pink on one of Harper’s.  We’ve gotten lazy on that and haven’t kept up with that method; mostly we use the girls colors (Harper: pink; Emerie: purple; Reagan: teal) in their day-to-day outfits to instantly know who is who. In addition, their laughs and mannerisms are different. And the strawberry hemangiomas ensure we never permanently confuse who is who.

All in all, it is really exciting to have the official answer! As the girls grow, they seem to all look more alike, especially Harper and Reagan.  At some point Emerie will catch up with her sisters on weight and then it’ll be a bit more difficult.  It is very exciting to have spontaneous, identical triplet girls, and we are enjoying the adventure!

First day of the rest of my (working) life…

This weekend we took the girls out to a festival, and it was hot (for us wussy Alaskans) and muggy but they didn’t seem to mind. Emerie was still mean mugging us with Kaden’s sunglasses the whole time.

Sunday was a chill day, knowing full well that it would be a busy week with work starting back up for me and full time again for Craig,

Yesterday was my first day back to the office. I jumped right in to full time days, as opposed to the original plan to do partial days to ease back in. It actually went better than I expected.

4:30 AM came bright and early, and after pumping, getting ready, and feeding the girls, I left for work. The whole summer we’ve fed them at five or six AM and gone back to bed for two more hours…but no longer!

There is so much to catch up on, and a lot of grant deadlines to complete this month. I’m happy it’s going to be busy because that will keep me awake! Everyone is very supportive of my new life adventure.

I swear I didn’t pester the nanny the entire day and she volunteered a few pictures of the girls as they woke up. It’s definitely hard to miss the morning; the girls are always so happy and smiley when you pick them up from their cribs and want to cuddle with you. It appears they are going to be morning kids, like Craig.

And we had plenty of snuggles and some play time after work!

Arrange and Re(arrange)

This is the third time we have completely rearranged the nursery since the girls came home. Originally we thought everyone would cosleep in the same crib, but the NICU crossed that idea out of our heads. So when the girls came home we had one crib in their nursery and one in our room.

They lasted four nights in our room due to their noisiness. Seriously babies can be so loud when they sleep…they chatter, hiccup, and talk to each other all night long. So pretty quickly they started sleeping in the nursery, all 3 in one crib and separated by mesh dividers.

The second time we rearranged was to add the second crib back into their room, so one baby had the crib to themselves and the other two shared one divided down the middle by mesh. Well, that worked for a couple months, but now the girls are significantly taller than birth and are waking each other up, often with a kick to the face lol.

The last two nights everyone slept in their own cribs! Thank goodness all 3 cribs fit side by side…with about 4″ to spare! It was a decent bedtime routine, and yesterday everyone was awake early to start the day! Hopefully today they will sleep in a little longer.

It is also cute to see how much they shift around during the night. Rolling in their sleep is right around the corner I think…not ready for that yet! Here is Reagan at five am. She started the night in the middle…

Starting to Roll

Welp, we officially have a roller. Not an accidental roll either like in June. Craig put Reagan down on the floor for tummy time and off she went! She immediately rolled a couple times and I caught part of it on camera! Eeek!

When Harper went down for tummy time she refused to try to roll. Instead she scooted with her legs, on her belly, around the mat. That’s a little too close to crawling if you ask me…

Emerie’s neck muscles are getting a lot stronger and she’s not quite so “beast mode” during tummy time.

I put Reagan and Harper in sleepers are little too similar, and we were having a heck of a time telling them apart! But they were so cute…outfits all the way from Reine in England!

The girls are FINALLY settling down for the four month shots; but are again cranky from the 80 degree heat that makes our house boil. Thank goodness for baby tank tops!

More Giggles and…Shots?

I didn’t want Emerie to feel left out… she giggled just after I posted yesterday’s blog. She’s also started talking to us constantly, what Harper and Reagan did last week.

I’ve noticed the girls only giggle when they are in diapers, and mostly on the changing table. It makes me think they are starting to be ticklish and that makes them laugh. Or my face and hair are somehow very silly to them! They also get the hiccups each time, so their diaphragms aren’t quite ready for it but that’ll get better. But seriously it is cute. I’m excited for this development phase!

We also had four month shots yesterday, which we’re told are one of the worst shot sets. Not surprisingly there were tears and fussiness after, but we made it through and the doctor helped us cuddle and feed them. Everyone is in good percentiles, and Reagan is actually 1/4″ taller then Harper now!

Last night was a bit rough with a lot of crankiness and overall today went pretty well with Tylenol for their mild fevers. It was also an excuse to put them in cute summer clothing, because the house was warm today, and to have more baby snuggles! We will certainly continue to do doctor checkups on Fridays, especially when I go back to work, so we have the weekend to get everyone back to their normal, happy selves.