Three for the price of 1

MANHASSET, N.Y. —  Tom and Allison Penn wanted a baby more than anything. Now they have three, all alike.

The triplets, Logan, Eli and Collin Penn, born last Wednesday in North Shore University Hospital, faced a battery of TV cameras without a whimper Tuesday at a news conference at the hospital.

They are identical triplets, the first known to be born on Long Island in almost 15 years. Estimates on the odds of identical triplets being born range from one in every 60,000 births to one in 200 million births, said Dr. Victor Klein, who delivered the three boys.

The babies, developed from a single egg and placenta, were given only a 30% chance of all three surviving by the first obstetrician consulted by the Patchogue, N.Y., couple, said Tom Penn, who called them “miracle babies.”

Klein, who specializes in high-risk deliveries, gave them more confidence. This was his 161st delivery of triplets in 20 years, he said, but none of the previous sets were indisputably identical.

The couple, who had been trying for four years to have a baby, opted for an in-vitro procedure but hoped to avoid multiple births. There was no stopping the embryo from splitting once and then splitting again, however, and now they’re happy with their multiple sons, said Penn, 46, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where his wife, Allison, 31, also works as an environmental educator.

When told they would have triplets, the couple experienced “complete shock. We thought, ‘That’s not possible,’ ” Allison Penn said. “Then Tom started laughing and I started crying. . . . I was terrified.”

But she looked at ease Tuesday with a baby on each arm while her husband held the third.

Allison’s mother, Marianne McGuire, 64, of Manchester, N.J., is staying with them to help take care of the babies.

The triplets, carried to 35 weeks and weighing 4 pounds, 12 ounces (Logan); 4 pounds (Eli); and 4 pounds, 11 ounces (Collin) at birth, went home Sunday.