Family celebrates triplets' one-month birthdays

ST. CLAIR SHORES, Mich. - A suburban Detroit couple who have two older children are adjusting to life after becoming parents to identical triplets - a multiple birth that's rare.

The Whiteley family of St. Clair Shores is celebrating the one-month birthdays Wednesday for Alexander, Nicholas and Timothy.

Lauren Whiteley says it "was the shock of a lifetime" when an ultrasound revealed three fetuses. Many triplets are the result of fertility treatments, but Whiteley said she didn't take fertility drugs.

She and her husband, Michael, have older sons ages 3 and 2.

Dr. Savitri Kumar at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, where the triplets were born, says data on triplet births by natural conception is "very variable" but one-in-a-million is "the most commonly quoted."