Test-Tube Triplets--After 13 Years : Births to La Habra Couple First of Kind for Private Clinic

Test-tube triplets were born Tuesday to a La Habra couple who had tried unsuccessfully for 13 years to have children--the first birth of its kind administered by a private clinic.

Eleni Anas gave birth by Caesarean section shortly before 1:30 p.m. to three boys, all of whom were reported doing well in the neonatal intensive care unit at Santa Monica Hospital.

“We sort of went through the whole thing in disbelief, because we’ve been trying for so long,” said father Nick Anas, 48. “It’s starting to get exciting now.”

The babies, born five weeks premature, were the first triplets in the United States to be born through the in vitro fertilization process in a private clinic, said Santa Monica Hospital spokeswoman Gail Sidney. Others so far have been born through university clinics or research hospitals, she said.

Anas said the couple turned to Dr. William G. Karow’s private fertilization clinic after years of attempts at surgical and artificial insemination procedures proved ineffective.

Because Eleni Anas, 36, appeared to be physically capable of carrying a child, he said, the couple turned to the in vitro fertilization method, in which a woman’s eggs are fertlized by the man’s sperm in a glass dish, then implanted in the womb.

Two previous attempts at test tube fertilization were unsuccessful before Eleni finally became pregnant last March, Anas said.

The babies, named Peter Nicholas, Nicholas Nick and Christopher Nicholas, weighed in at three pounds, 15 ounces; four pounds, three ounces, and four pounds, one ounce, and should be able to go home in two weeks, according to Dr. Hugh MacDonald, chief neonatologist at Santa Monica Hospital’s the BirthPlace.

Though they are five weeks premature, none of the babies is receiving oxygen, Sidney said.

Hospital officials said Mrs. Anas was doing well. And while it will be at least several days before she can go home, the new mother is “elated” about the births, Sidney added. “I think she was a little disappointed they didn’t have one girl, but of course after 13 years . . . .”

Anas, who is of Greek descent, said it is traditional to bestow children with their father’s middle name. Peter, he said, is his own father’s name, “and Christopher is for Christ.”