After spending six weeks in intensive care, little Roman, Rocco and Rohan look so similar one can not tell them apart.The odds of having identical triplets is an incredible 200 million to one.
Fortunately for their 23-year-old mother, tell-tale features plus the ten-month-old triplets’ emerging personalities mean she for one has no trouble telling them apart.
‘When they were newborns it was quite hard to tell which one was which, but I never got them mixed up myself,’‘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.
According to the Multiple Births Foundation, the only way to establish for certain whether twins or triplets are identical – known as zygosity determination – is usually DNA testing.
After consulting them, Miss Allen took cheek swabs from Roman, Rocco and Rohan and sent them off to a laboratory to be analysed – and earlier this month received the news that they are genetically identical.
I was surprised because I expected them to be non-identical,’ she said. ‘But then I’m normally the only one who can tell them apart, so that does explain a lot!’
The triplets get through around 130 nappies a week between them and four packs of baby wipes, while a pack of formula lasts about two days and the washing machine is run around three times a day.
As their father, Liam Tierney, 28, does not live with her, much of the day to day help comes from her sister Lauren, 17.
