My Triplet Ballerinas… Identical or Fraternal?

Guest Blogger:  Megan J.

My triplet ballerinas are my triplet daughters, Makenna, Jaeli and Maysie.

When I was about 7 weeks along with my pregnancy, we learned we were having triplets. At that time, we were told the babies were all fraternal because they were in three separate sacs.

After the triplets were born and in the NICU, we noticed right away that Jaeli and Maysie looked a lot alike. We had trouble with which triplet was Jaeli and which one was Maysie while Makenna was easily recognized. At only a few weeks old, we took the girls back to the hospital for pictures and had to remove Maysie’s hip brace and Jaeli’s heart monitor. After taking the pictures, it was time to put everything back on. This is the only time that I was ever confused about who was Maysie and who was Jaeli. Thankfully, I had previously painted Maysie’s toe nail in case this would happen. This made me start to wonder though if Maysie and Jaeli were really fraternal. I remembered hearing from another triplet mom that she had her triplets tested with an at-home DNA test. This was very cheap and simple to do, so we decided to have it done. The lab called one day and said they were emailing me the results but wanted to let me know that the test showed a 99% match for Jaeli and Maysie being identical twins!

As Jaeli and Maysie have gotten older, it is easier now to tell them apart. They may be identical, but they are also different in many ways. Like their fraternal triplet sister, Makenna, they each have their own individual personality that makes them their own person.