Meet the Mohr triplets.Cooper will be two...

Meet the Mohr triplets.

Cooper will be two years old in February. Sisters Mollie and Hannah were born a month ago.

Huh?

It’s not a hoax, but an act of science that took place June 26, 1986, when the three babies--born later to Jane and Terry Mohr of Manhattan Beach--were conceived through in vitro fertilization of eggs taken from Jane’s ovaries.

The procedure produced nine embryos. Four were placed the next day in Jane Mohr’s uterus; one of those survived, resulting in Cooper’s birth on Feb. 15, 1987. The five other embryos were frozen in liquid nitrogen and kept at South Bay Hospital for later replacement.

After Cooper’s birth, recalled Terry Mohr, “we used to drive by the hospital and say there’s the rest of our family on ice.”

And in time, three of those frozen embryos were placed in Jane Mohr’s uterus, resulting in the births of the girls--who are twins--on Nov. 29.

In the realm of science, the three are fraternal triplets “because they were conceived at the same time,” says Dr. David Meldrum, head of the in vitro fertilization center at the Redondo Beach hospital. The in vitro procedure and freezing of embryos for later uterine implantation involve standard medical procedures, but the hospital claims that two pregnancies from a single in vitro procedure is a first for the nation.

In the real world of parents and kids, the Mohrs say they have no intention of calling their children triplets. “As far as we’re concerned, we have a toddler and twins,” said Jane.

“This is for the media,” said Terry Mohr of the press conference that introduced the Mohr brood to the world.

Wearing a bow tie and suspenders, Cooper was restless, and the pink-clad twins occasionally cried as the Mohrs--he’s a professional fund-raiser and she’s an airline flight attendant--talked about their joy at being parents after several years of trying.

“It’s hard to say how grateful we are,” said Jane Mohr, 38. “A lot of people prayed for us.”

She said that she became pregnant the first time a few months after she and Terry Mohr were married eight years ago. But that and two later pregnancies were tubal, in which the embryos do not enter the uterus. She and her husband realized that their only hope was in vitro fertilization.

“I come from a family of 10,” she said. “I wanted children. I went into this saying it would work and it did.”

“Infertility creates such terrible stress and pressure,” said Terry Mohr, 40, explaining that every failed pregnancy he and his wife suffered “was like losing a child. . . . We give people a little hope.”