46-Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to Identical Triplets After Being Told by Doctors That She Couldn’t Have More Children Because Her ‘Eggs Were Too Old’
Pic: Today
Audrey Tiberius was 41 when fertility specialists told her that her chances of conceiving a child with in vitro fertilization (IVF) were just 10%.
“They said, ‘I’m sorry, your eggs are too old,’” the Utah mom recalled in an interview with TODAY Parents. “We did three rounds of in vitro and they all failed.”
Tiberius got pregnant naturally at the age of 46. On March 30, she and her husband, Tyler Tiberius, 41, welcomed identical triplet boys.
Sky, River, and Bay joined big brothers Marcus, 13, James, 11, Christian, 9, and Max, 7.
“Most experts put the odds of identical triplets at one in 200 million births,” Tiberius said. “I talked to a statistician and apparently the odds of a 45-year-old having identical triplets are one in 20 billion.”
It’s quite rare to become pregnant without medical intervention at 45, according to Dr. Lisa Thiel, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Spectrum Health West Michigan.
“We have millions and millions of eggs when we’re born and then they die off over time. As we start to get into our mid-thirties we have fewer eggs that are appropriate for reproduction and getting pregnant is harder to achieve,” Thiel told TODAY. “By the time we’re 41, the risk of having chromosomal abnormalities is also much higher.”
Thiel went on to say that there is a very high risk of miscarriage in the first trimester because the uterine lining isn’t as healthy.
Tiberius, who is pumping breast milk for a total of seven hours a day, is looking for milk donors so she can spend more time with her seven children.
“I always had seven in my mind — that was always my dream number. But I didn’t think it would happen for me because of my age,” she revealed.
As per KSL-TV, though Tiberius was initially concerned about experiencing a miscarriage — at 45 the risk is roughly 80% according to the Mayo Clinic — she learned to trust her body. She also leaned into her faith.
“I prayed that my babies would be safe and that I would deliver them when I was supposed to — and that’s what happened,” she said.
Tiberius said she was naive about her fertility. She assumed that because her paternal grandmother had babies in her 40s, she would be able to do the same.
“I didn’t realize that older celebrities often use frozen eggs or donor eggs,” she shared. “Doctors need to talk to women about fertility and what their options are to save them heartache.”
Tiberius described her triplets as “miracles.”
“This was so statistically unlikely that there’s no way to explain it other than a miracle,” she told TODAY.
