Mom Celebrates Healthy Rare Identical Triplets Born Against 50-Million-to-One Odds
A mother of three says her identical triplet daughters are thriving nearly three months after their extraordinary arrival — and she credits careful planning, routine, and strong community support for keeping everything running smoothly.
Mahalia Meeuwsen, who lives in Salmon Arm with her husband Mike, says life with three newborns is busy but joyful.
“I set up an online schedule where neighbours, friends, and members of our local Rotary Club can sign up to help,” she explained. “They come by for morning or afternoon feeds while my husband is at work. It’s been amazing.”

Sticking to a strict routine has made a big difference. “We follow a feeding schedule, and thankfully the girls sleep well between feeds at night,” she said.
Meeuwsen has also found comfort in connecting with other parents of multiples through a Facebook group, where she can ask questions and swap advice.
Her daughters — Hannah, Rileigh, and Isabelle — were born on November 3, 2015. Doctors say naturally conceived identical triplets occur in roughly one out of every 50 million births, making their arrival exceptionally rare.
Now that they’re growing, Meeuwsen says their individual personalities are already shining through.
“Isabelle is definitely my busy one. Once she starts crawling, I think she’ll be everywhere,” she said with a laugh. “Rileigh is so easygoing. She’s usually the last one I feed because she’s happy just sitting there watching everything.”
“And Hannah? She’s the impatient one. She wants to eat first and goes from calm to upset in no time.”

Despite the sweetness of those moments, Meeuwsen admits there’s hardly a break in her day.
“After every feeding, I’m washing and sterilizing bottles, doing laundry, and getting everything ready for the next round,” she said. “There’s no putting your feet up. It’s all about staying organized and prepared.”
The couple had spent several years hoping for a baby before discovering they were expecting in May. They had chosen not to pursue in-vitro fertilization and had begun accepting the possibility they might not have children.
Then came the surprise of not one baby — but three.
The girls were delivered prematurely by C-section at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops. Each weighed just over three pounds at birth.
“It was overwhelming at first, seeing them with all the tubes and monitors,” Meeuwsen recalled. “That was really hard.”
But patience and constant support carried them through those early days. In what she calls another miracle, all three girls were discharged from hospital on the same day and are now home without any health concerns.
“To have them all healthy and doing so well — that’s the greatest blessing,” she said.