There is a two-year age gap between Alice Baxter and her triplet siblings, but amazingly they are actually quadruplets.

Their parents, Helen, 41, and Shane, 38, had been trying for 18 months to start a family, and when tests showed Helen was unlikely to conceive naturally, they turned to fertility treatment.

In May 2006, Helen underwent IVF treatment. She had two fertilized eggs implanted in her womb and four were frozen. Two weeks later, Helen was pregnant. Her pregnancy went smoothly and their daughter Alice was born in February 2007.

Miraculously, after Alice’s birth, Helen fell pregnant naturally twice, but suffered miscarriages on both occasions.

“It was devastating when we lost our babies. We’d been on such an emotional roller-coaster that we decided we’d only try one more time – this time using frozen embryos,” says Helen.

The couple’s four remaining fertilized eggs were defrosted and doctors put three back into her womb.

“Because I was over 40, I was allowed to have three put in. I’d had two embryos put in the first time and I fell pregnant with one baby, so I just hoped that we would be as lucky again and fall pregnant with one baby,” she recalls.

But when Helen went for her eight-week scan, the doctors had amazing news for her – she was pregnant with triplets.

“I couldn’t believe it. The embryos had not been the best quality to start with, so the likelihood of all of them being successful was minimal,” says the excited mum.

Doctors offered to terminate one or two of the babies to give Helen a better chance of giving birth to one baby successfully. But she refused.

Read the full story in this week's Woman's Day, on sale March 8, 2010.