Audrey Tiberius: 46-year-old Utah woman becomes mother to TRIPLETS after being told her eggs were 'too old'
ALPINE, UTAH: In a miraculous case, a woman delivered identical triplets after being told that even conceiving through in vitro fertilization (IVF) was impossible for her. Audrey Tiberius reportedly became pregnant at the age of 45 and had sons Sky, River, and Bay on March 30. She and her husband Tyler Tiberius also have four more sons — 13-year-old Marcus, James, 11, Christian, 9, and Max, 7.
Audrey told TODAY Parents that when she was 41, fertility specialists said to her, “I’m sorry, your eggs are too old.” She revealed, “We did three rounds of in vitro and they all failed.” However, eventually, she conceived naturally and gave birth to her three sons together. “Most experts put the odds of identical triplets at one in 200 million births. I talked to a statistician and apparently the odds of a 45-year-old having identical triplets are one in 20 billion,” the new mother explained.
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As per the Mayo Clinic, “At age 40, the risk [of miscarriage] is about 40 percent. And at age 45, it's about 80 percent.” Dr Lisa Thiel, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Spectrum Health West Michigan, agrees. “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 less eggs that are appropriate for reproduction and getting pregnant is harder to achieve. By the time we're 41, the risk of having chromosomal abnormalities is also much higher,” she said.
Audrey also believes that doctors should be more open and informative with women while talking about fertility choices. The mother-of-seven asserted, “I didn’t realize that older celebrities often use frozen eggs or donor eggs. Doctors need to talk to women about fertility and what their options are to save them heartache.”
The woman claimed, “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 added, “I prayed that my babies would be safe and that I would deliver them when I was supposed to — and that’s what happened. This was so statistically unlikely that there’s no way to explain it other than a miracle.”
In a July Facebook post, Audrey shared that her son Bay lost his spleen during a surgery. She wrote, “Without it, Bay really relies on the antibodies in breastmilk to stay healthy. He also is on a feeding tube and gets small oral feedings through bottles as well. It’s very hard for him to digest even breastmilk and he refluxes and struggles terribly to poop.”
“The triplets are 3 months old and I’ve been pumping 9 times a day to produce enough for less than 2 of them. Recently I had clogged ducts that I couldn’t get out no matter what I tried. As a result my milk supply has suffered dramatically. I’m hoping and praying for donors because I don’t know how much longer I can keep up with caring for my seven children and pumping. If anyone knows someone who may possibly want to donate milk to me, I would be forever grateful,” she concluded.