Being an Identical Triplet

Being an Identical Triplet

A Blessing and a Curse

Compiled by:

 Brittany, Ashley, and Lindsay Lees

“Can you feel each others’ pain?” “Have you ever switched places?” “Do your husbands ever get confused?” “Do YOU ever get confused?”

These are just a few of the many questions we have been asked growing up as Identical Triplets.

Being an Identical Triplet has been both a blessing and a curse.  A blessing because you always have two best friends no matter the circumstance. A curse when the boy you are in love with in the 3^rd grade comes up to you and asks, “Are you number 1, 2, or 3?” Talk about a major let down when your crush not only doesn’t know your name, but also refers to you as a number.

We decided it was time to record the times of identity fraud we have encountered…both intentionally and unintentionally and what it was like growing up as a triplet. We want this for our own personal records to share with our children, before we forget all the fun and not so fun moments of switching places. So here goes nothing.

Baby Years

         First…the reaction our parents displayed when receiving the news of adding three angels to the family. My mother was told by her doctor early on to stop eating so much, because she was “gaining too much.” What every pregnant girl wants to hear, right? At the time our parents had 3 young boys ages 2, 4, and 6. They were hoping for a girl. Be careful what you wish for. The ultrasound day came and our mother went in to see her healthy baby…. Our dad had mentioned before to her, “As long as it is just one baby.” Uh oh, he was in for a big surprise. The doctor calmly said, “Well, it is not one, not two, but three.”  

Our mom immediately jumped up with joy and pure excitement, right? Wrong. She was terrified to go home and tell our dad who had repeatedly told her before the ultrasound, “As long as it is not twins…”

She went home and nervously told our father that it definitely was not twins. She said his reply was, “Oh thank goodness. I mean we could have done it, but I am just so relieved it is not twins.”

Our mom then proceeded to tell him, “It’s triplets.”

Dad’s response: “That’s not funny.”

When my mom started crying, he realized it was not a joke and walked right out of the room while our mom continued to sob. Not quite the welcome we would have liked, but now being parents ourselves…totally reasonable. They were in for quite the ride. Our dad told our mother to keep it a secret. He definitely was in denial. He obviously didn’t see what a blessing we would turn out to be at the time. =)

Our mom was put on bed rest the same week and then spent the last three months of her pregnancy in Long Beach, California at the hospital that specialized in multiples, while our Dad along with family helped tend the older three boys. The hospital was an hour and a half away from Ontario (where our home was located) so our poor mom lived for the visits she would receive from friends and family until we arrived, May 21, 1985. Born in intervals of one minute (Don’t worry it was C-Section), we made our appearance and our parents were told that they got their wish…not one, not two, but three girls. 

So how in the world did our parents afford all the diapers? Thankfully they were contacted by a television show at Burbank Studios, St. Elsewhere: a soap opera that starred Denzel Washington, William Daniels (Better known as Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World) and Howie Mendel. We played Baby Barbara. They often used multiples in show business, because of the laws of how long a baby can be under the lights. So all three of us played one baby, like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen on Full House…only our fame was short-lived. We were “born” on set (how many of you can say that you have done nudity on television?) and were put into care of William Daniels…so yes, our “grandpa” was Mr. Feeny. Our “mom” was apparently in a coma from a car accident and that is why her baby had to be delivered. (Sometimes we wonder if our real mother would have liked to spend the first few years of “triplethood” in a coma… =) We were able to meet some well-known actors on the set like Pierce Brosnan (who later played James Bond). Too bad we were too young to care, but we do like to tell people we were held in the arms of James Bond. We also probably pooped in the arms of James Bond, but we leave that part out.

 The show ended dramatically with our mother coming out of the coma and taking her baby back to live with her away from our grandparents. We were about 3 years old.

St. Elsewhere cast

We also were put on the home shopping network to help promote baby gates and a fancy gadget where you put a pager on your baby that would beep when the baby walked a certain distance away from the room. Our parents said they waited in the green room beforehand, where they fed us vanilla wafers and Cheetos to keep us entertained. It was there that Richard Simmons walked into the room and decided to share our vanilla wafers but refused the Cheetos, telling my parents that they were not good for you.  Thank you Richard Simmons for the free health advice, but it obviously didn’t stick because we still eat Cheetoes today.  ;)

We spent the rest of babyhood with colored bracelets and colored clothes to help identify each other. The doctors suggested tattoos behind our ears to help distinguish one another. Thankfully they didn’t listen. Ashley was always pink, Lindsay was always yellow or purple, and Brittany was always blue. Funny how those colors ended up being our favorite colors growing up and even our wedding colors.

 We wore our parents out and they thought they would die from exhaustion of three babies and three boys, but miraculously they found a way to survive.

You can see Lindsay's yellow ribbon bracelet in this picture

Elementary Years

         Oh Elementary school…how we loved and hated you. All our friends thought it would be hilarious if we switched classes for April Fool’s Day… so we did. The teachers knew something was up when all the students were giggling hysterically and pointing at you. We never had a chance to keep up the act, and we also never would…we were as you would call, goody goodies. Our friends would always try to get us to switch places for things like tests or events, but we felt too guilty to be deceitful…well not all the time.

            Ashley got in trouble one night, and as punishment was not allowed to eat any ice cream. Well, being a triplet, we even could trick our parents. Ashley went back with Lindsay’s bowl and kindly asked if she could please have another scoop. Our mom didn’t think much of it and scooped another scoop for “Lindsay” and later realized it was Ashley who was pretending to be her sister to get her own scoop of ice cream.  Her trick caused her to miss the next two nights of treats…and our mom was more observant of who was coming back for seconds.

In elementary we also mastered the art of calling other people and pretending to be one another. So when Brittany was too afraid to break up with her 4th grade boyfriend, Lindsay simply called and said she was Brittany and gently let him down. It was a great way for us to let each other do one another’s dirty work.  It is much easier pretending to be someone else. We felt like we knew one another well enough to know what one another would say to the person. 
Our brother said he remembered one time when we were kids and rode our bikes down the street. He said one of us rode it down the street and then our sister shortly came after. One of our neighbors turned to our brother astounded that his sister could ride her bike around the block at the speed of light. He asked him how his sister got to be so fast…our brother then had to explain that he had THREE sisters who looked just a little bit alike. =)

We also started sports like running and soccer in elementary, and with that came a lot of competition that we hated. We often times ran all three together and passed the finish line close to one another, so no one would feel bad or left out. In soccer, we had conversations like, “You have already scored two goals, so let me score a goal.” So, we purposely started passing to whomever we decided needed to score a goal. This also went with scrimmaging one another. If two of us were put together to practice we would say, “Don’t let me look bad. Let me get around you this time and I will let you get around next time.” We did this throughout our whole lives, even up to high school soccer. We were always trying to succeed together.

            Being a triplet also created problems because we were considered one unit. Our brothers did not always enjoy the fact there were three of us. One of our brothers one time had some French fries and our mom told him to give Ashley a French fry. His reply was, “No, because then I have to give three away.”

             This might be a silly example, but it represents what happened a lot growing up. We came as a set…if you wanted one; you had to have us all. There was a time when Brittany was invited to a slumber party in the third grade. Lindsay and Ashley both cried the whole night that they were not invited while Brittany cried at the slumber party, because her sisters were not there. (Yes, the slumber party was literally a block away) We always felt like we needed to do everything together.

Our parents found this out the hard way when our Dad decided to take Ashley and Daniel on a trip to Utah. He thought he was doing a good job parenting in taking us one on one to do something special. Boy was he wrong. Ashley cried every night she was gone and Lindsay and Brittany asked him when he came home, “Why is Ashley your favorite?” Our parents learned then that it was better to keep us together. =)

            This also had some benefits. We all three were honored in 5^th grade as Citizen of the Year. It was the first year they had more than one student honored. We know it was because they would never be able to just choose one of us, because the other two would be forever crushed.

Growing up, we always wondered if our brothers could tell us apart. We had one brother who literally called all of us, “ Hey girl” our entire lives. It wasn’t until high school that we started quizzing him to see if he really knew who he was talking to.

High School Years

High school… the time where you find out your true identity. How are you supposed to find your true identity when you are called three different names your whole life?!? Don’t get us wrong, we loved being known as “the triplets” but sometimes, just sometimes, we really wanted the guy we liked to say our name, instead of, “Hey are you Ashley or one of your sisters” or “Are you Larry, Curly, or Moe.” Ha ha, you are very clever. We had never heard that one before. We appreciated the ones who really were interested in what is what like being a triplet and having two people look just like you, but when people hit Brittany and then asked Ashley if she felt it (you know because we have special powers and feel each other’s pain), it got annoying.

            Let’s get back to boys. Dating was rough when the guy you liked could not even tell you apart, or thought he could tell you apart. Junior year, we went to a dance. A song came on, and Lindsay’s date asked Ashley to dance and Ashley’s date asked Lindsay. Lindsay and Ashley immediately knew that the boys had messed up, but continued to play along. (We often did this, because we did not want to embarrass the person) Half way through the song, their dates realized they were not dancing with the right girl and laughed and asked to switch back to their original girl. Didn’t they notice a different dress?!  To their credit, it was dark, but not that dark.

            Another time, Brittany was dating a guy and all three of us went over to watch a movie with some friends. When we sat down to watch the movie, Brittany noticed that the guy she was dating sat by Lindsay. He was sitting very close to Lindsay and kept putting his arm around her. Brittany at first thought her date was mad at her in some way, but realized soon after that he was confused. Both Lindsay and Brittany looked at one another, knowing his mistake, but decided to keep quiet to see if he would notice. Halfway through the movie, yes it took him this long, he said, “Brittany and I are eating all the popcorn.” Brittany then said, “I’m not eating any popcorn.” His face immediately fell and he calmly excused himself and asked to speak to Brittany. He thought it was a hilarious mistake.  Yea, real funny…hitting on your sister right in front of your eyes…hilarious. Let’s just say, soon after that they stopped dating.

            This did have some advantages. AOL instant messenger was huge during this time and we all loved to pretend to be one another on it when talking to boys. One of us really liked this boy sophomore year and would often ask for help on what to type…It ended up with the one of the other two sisters saying, “Just move over and let me type…don’t worry I will be witty and make you look charming.” This may be deceitful, but honestly the guy probably could not even tell us apart anyway.

We did this also for phone calls we did or did not want to make. “Would you please call and pretend to be me and ask if he will go with me to the dance? I am too nervous?” “Would you call so and so and tell them I can’t go to their house, I don’t want to say no.”

Soccer was such a fun experience to play with your identical sisters. We were on every team together, from age 5 to age 21.  There were A LOT of times when coaches AND even our parents called us our sisters’ name when on the field.  There was an occasion when our dad was yelling, “Brittany get the ball! Brittany go after it!” Brittany then tapped his shoulder and said, “Dad, I’m out. That’s Lindsay.”

One of our favorite soccer story is when Lindsay slid tackled a girl and got called for it. The referee went up to Ashley and pulled out a yellow card and continued to yellow card Ashley. Ashley was confused and told him, ”I didn’t do anything!” The referee snapped back, “Don’t argue with me. You know what you did.” Brittany and Lindsay were trying not to laugh.

We also were stopped almost every game by a player of the opposing team to be asked, “Are there two of you?” We then would reply, “There are three of us.” They always responded after that, “Whoa…I just thought you were really fast and were all over the field.” 

Back to the question, “Can you feel one another’s pain?” In a sense, yes we can. Lindsay may not feel when Ashley gets pinched physically, but emotionally, we are very much tied together. Any time one of us got hurt on the field, it was hard for the other two not to cry as well. One soccer game, Lindsay was injured badly (torn ACL) and Ashley and Brittany cried the whole way home. We could feel the disappointment and sorrow Lindsay was feeling. Sounds weird, but when you are so apart of someone else, you truly feel their emotions.  Our connection gets a little more odd.

The summer before we became seniors, Ashley and Brittany were in a car accident that totaled their car. Lindsay was at home when it happened. She said she knew something was wrong before we even called.  Lindsay even told my Dad several times that she was worried about where we were, even though we were not gone long. She kept telling our dad that something was wrong. The phone rang, and both our Dad and Lindsay answered to a hysterical Brittany explaining they were in a car accident and were near the 7-11 being taken to the hospital. Lindsay was panicked and kept thinking what to bring to her sisters at the hospital. You will never guess what she brought. She came running into the hospital to see both Ashley and Brittany and cried with them. Ashley and Brittany both told her how they wished they had chapstick. Lindsay stood there shocked and took out of her pocket what she was prompted to bring… a tube of chapstick.

One of the best aspects about having two others who look like you during high school is you always have your own personal mannequin. Anytime we wanted to see what something would look like on us we would tell one another, “Hey put this on. I want to see if I should buy it.” It was a great way to have a mirror when there wasn’t one.

When we were 16 years old, we were contacted by a commercial agency to do a commercial in Washington. We could not have been more excited about it. It was for the electronic company, Car Toys. We were flown out, given identical hair cuts, had a make-up artist, and got to pretend to talk on a cell phone while walking through the mall being filmed. Not a bad day for a 16-year-old girl. We felt like movie stars. The only catch was we wanted to make sure that the commercial would only be played in Washington. We couldn’t stand the thought of having our peers see us in a commercial. They told us it would only be played locally. Phew. However, later that year we were approached by a boy in our high school class who had satellite and told us he saw us on a commercial. It was embarrassing.

There are many times in our life where we know each other thoughts without having to say anything at all.  When it was time to apply for college, we luckily all got in to the same college, BYU, and decided to be roommates…of course. Why would we decide to split up now? We thought days of confusion would be more infrequent at college, but that proved not to be the case.

College Years

            Lindsay and Ashley had the same major at BYU and Brittany was in a different one. This created a lot of problems because everyone thought Lindsay and Ashley were twins. So Brittany got asked a lot on campus if she was Ashley or Lindsay and when she answered neither, they were dumbfounded. “What?! There is another one of you?!”

            There was a particular time, where Ashley and Lindsay were invited to a dinner to receive an award for their major. Well, Ashley was not too excited, as it was the same time as a concert she was dying to attend. So, she begged Brittany to take her place. Brittany reluctantly agreed, as long as no one would talk to her or ask her questions. So, Lindsay and Brittany set out to campus for the ceremony while Ashley went to the concert. Brittany and Lindsay sat down at a table and to their great surprise, the professor of the major sat down right next to Brittany. Oh great.  Before she could explain that she was accepting Ashley’s award, he launched into a conversation with Lindsay and whom he thought was Ashley. It was too late to correct him now. That would only make he look dumb. It got trickier when he started asking “Ashley” specific questions like, “Ashley what is the name of the girl who sits by you?”

            Brittany’s heart was racing and quickly turned to Lindsay and asked, “Lindsay who sits by us again?” (Talk about digging deeper and deeper) It was so hard to try and talk about a class that that you have never even attended in your life!

            The professor knew Ashley and Lindsay were triplets and steered the conversation towards that topic. He was fascinated and asked who he thought was Ashley,  “Ashley, so, how much does your sister Brittany look like you guys?”

            Brittany, who was pretending to be Ashley responded, “Oh… she looks a lot like us, wouldn’t you say Lindsay?”

            Lindsay and Brittany looked at one another with wide eyes, trying so hard to keep up the act and praying no one else would come up and realize their professors error, especially since now they were in too deep with the act.

            The professor continued, “So you are saying that you could really be Brittany right now and I would never know it?”

            AHHH!! If he only knew!!!  “I guess so,” was all Brittany could muster. He laughed and then continued to say, “I would know it, I am sure, because I see you two every day in class. (Wow…he could not be further from the truth)

            The night continued and as soon as the awards were passed out, Brittany and Lindsay booked it out of the room laughing and sighing relief the whole way home.

            There many times on campus where a girl would come up to Brittany and say, “Hey Ashley, so-and-so got his mission call.” (We NEVER corrected someone if called by the wrong name if we could get away with it, just for fear of embarrassing the person.) Brittany then would  go home to their apartment and say, “Okay Ashley. Someone from your class thought I was you and told me that so-and-so got his mission call. She had short blonde hair.” Ashley then had to figure out what girl it was from her class, so that she would not show up the next day looking ignorant. MOST of the time, we relayed the messages correctly.

            There was one incident when Lindsay went to class and was asked by a friend, “So are you coming to my apartment tonight?” 

Lindsay looked blankly at her friend and asked, “What are you talking about?”

            The girl continued to tell Lindsay that she had talked to her yesterday all about studying at her house for the test. (Obviously she did NOT talk to Lindsay, and must have talked to who she THOUGHT was Lindsay.) Lindsay tried to recover the conversation and told her, “Oh yea, Sorry. I just forgot.”

            Lindsay then went home and said, “Alright Ashley or Brittany…which one of you forgot to tell me that you ran into someone yesterday.” Ashley’s face went white. “Oops! I’m so sorry! I totally forgot that someone thought I was you and asked you to go to her apartment. Sorry!” Ashley said.

            Another time, Brittany decided to go to the computer lab with Lindsay and Ashley. Lindsay and Ashley had gone into their classroom to do some work, while Brittany was at the computer. A girl from Lindsay and Ashley’s class left their class and went to go print something. She walked in the room and saw Brittany sitting there. The girl left the lab, after printing a paper, and walked back to the classroom. She walked in and saw Lindsay and Ashley sitting in their seats. She decided to go back to the lab, to make sure her eyes were not deceiving her, and their sat Brittany. (Who she did not know even existed.) She approached Brittany and asked, “How in the world did you get here so fast!? I just saw you in the classroom!”

            Brittany knew that she thought she was one of her sisters and immediately responded, “We are triplets.”

            The girl continued to explain she thought she was going crazy and that she thought my sisters had super-human speed.

            Now comes the fun part…dating.

Brittany’s husband, used to walk in the room with his head down and ask, “Brittany are you ready?” and wait for Brittany to respond…just to be sure he did not make a mistake. He said he could not tell us apart at first, and was so worried he would blow his chance by calling Brittany by the wrong name. (This was in the early dating phase…and don’t worry, he figured out quickly how to tell us apart). Matt learned that dating a triplet was tricky. He dated all three of us for a while, not literally, well, yea, kind of literally. Everywhere Brittany went, so did Ashley and Lindsay. So, he basically dated all three. If he wanted to surprise Brittany with a Slurpee, he knew he better get two extra as well. If he wanted to go to a concert, he knew that there would be two other people added to his list of tickets. It got a little expensive for him, but luckily it paid off because in the end, he got the girl. =) When Brittany got married, she had not spent more than 2 days away from Lindsay and Ashley. (This created some really fun psychological and emotional problems…but we will save that for another paper=)

            After Brittany got married, Ashley and Lindsay began dating their future husbands. It was our last year on campus, and we still got confused daily by others. There was one point where all three of us met together on campus for lunch and a girl walked up and said, “Oh….you are triplets!! I kept seeing the same girl with three different boys and kept thinking, ‘Wow, that girl gets around’.” Glad we could clear up that we were not one girl playing the field.

            Our dad’s advice to all our husbands was, “You marry one, you marry all”

Our husbands understood quickly that that was the truth.

“Do your husbands ever get confused?” Well…usually they catch their mistakes before they get physical with the wrong girl…but there was one incident…

We all were playing a board game at Brittany’s house after she got married. Ashley’s husband was in the living room, while Ashley and Brittany were at the table playing the game. Ashley’s husband had come to the table several times to talk to Ashley and then went back to the couch to talk to Lindsay. Well, there was a time when Ashley got up to drink some water and ended up sitting in a different seat at the table, so Brittany took her old seat. Unfortunately for Ashley’s husband, he did not notice the switch. He came back to the table and put his hands on Brittany’s shoulders.  At first, Brittany thought he was giving her a friendly “way to play” pat…but soon he began to rub her shoulders in a manner that was in no way a ”hey you are my wife’s sister” kind of rub. Brittany froze. She did not want to embarrass him, so she kicked Ashley under the table with wide eyes. Ashley looked at him and said, “Uh…whatcha doing over there to my sister?” He was mortified. Brittany then said, “Don’t worry, I would have stopped you if you leaned in for a kiss.”

After that incident, our husbands were a little more careful when we all got together.

Adulthood

After moving away from one another, we often times call one another with memories to only have our sister say, “I was just thinking about that too!” One time Lindsay called our dad and asked, “Dad, I was just thinking about when we were younger and for some reason I keep thinking we rode on an elephant. Did we ever ride on one?”

My dad then explained the answer. Well the very next day Brittany called our dad. “Dad, I was just thinking about when we were little…did we ever ride on an elephant?”

My dad quickly laughed and said, “You have been talking to your sister, haven’t you?”

            Brittany then explained that she had not even talked to Lindsay and asked why. Our dad started shaking his head and told Brittany that her sister had called the day before asking the exact same question.  Our minds must be linked in some way.

            Another time, Lindsay called Brittany and Ashley declaring that even though the test was negative that she KNEW she was pregnant. We all laughed and told her she must not be pregnant if the test was negative. She explained that she felt so pregnant and was nauseous and had taken 4 tests, expecting to see a positive. She was so confused, because in her mind, she was pregnant. A week later Brittany thought to take a test. It was positive.

            This has happened every pregnancy. We now call one another and say, “Alright…I am nauseous and feel pregnant but know I am not…so one of you needs to take a test to figure out who is pregnant.”

            And sure enough, one of us will announce a week later that she is pregnant. We kind of get tired of feeling pregnant when we really are not pregnant.

            Do our kids ever get confused? Yes. Poor kiddos. When Brittany’s oldest was two years old, we all got together and he kept running to Ashley calling her “mom.” Brittany then would walk in and his eyebrows would furrow and he’d reach for his real mom. Then when Brittany held him, he’d look back at Ashley and then reach back for her. Poor boy was so confused. There have been many times since then that we have all three gotten together and one of our children will say, “Which one is my real mom?”

            Living apart also means that there are some that do not know we are triplets. Visiting one another is always a fun adventure. After Lindsay had her knew surgery, Brittany went out to St. Louis to visit. She went in to the convenience store to get Lindsay a Slurpee, and the clerk was wowed and said, “Wow, I cannot believe you are already walking.”

 Since she had no idea that Lindsay was so close to the clerk, Brittany left giving a polite smile and feeling very confused. Later she told Lindsay what had happened and Lindsay laughed. Apparently the clerk knew Lindsay was having knee surgery and had no idea that Brittany was coming, let alone that she looked just like Lindsay. Brittany had to explain the next day to the clerk that she was Lindsay’s sister…and that Lindsay had not miraculously recovered over night.

            Another time Ashley came to visit Brittany and before she had arrived her house, she stopped to get a drink. What she didn’t know was that Brittany had just been at the same gas station a half hour earlier. Ashley walked in and the man immediately said, “You are back already?!” Ashley just giggled politely and the man said, “You sure drink a lot of Slurpees.” (This may be true even without the confusion)

            We often get confused if we are at the store and run into someone, who does not know we are visiting. Brittany visited Ashley one time in Dallas and walked through the store to pick up some items when someone from church started to talk to her about an activity. Brittany of course had no idea who the girl was and just listened until Ashley showed up behind her. The girl was taken aback to learn that she was not talking to Ashley.

            Another time Lindsay was at the store when the same thing happened. She came home to tell Brittany, someone from your church thought I was you at the store today. Another time Ashley walked into the store and came out and said, “Lindsay someone thought I was you and said hi to you…she had brown short hair.”

What do our futures hold? Probably more confusion, more false pregnancies, more “feeling each other’s pain”…but we would not change it for the world. We had a professor once tell us that if God was going to make one of you as unique and special as you are, then he might as well make three. This might be an oxymoron…but we sure are glad He did.