OK, not quite. But after writing "One decade later, triplets are still a joy," a story about Linda Donnelly and her children -- the first set of triplets born in Spokane in this millenium -- I received e-mails from a few others in the region whose lives also have been blessed by triplets.

Last week, Donna Peterson of Medical Lake became the grandmother of triplets when her daughter, Amy, gave birth to two boys and a girl. "We are used to twins in our family, but these are the first triplets," she wrote. Because her daughter was in the hospital for more than two months prior to giving birth, she and her husband weren't able to continue building their home.

"They will be bringing three babies home to a single-wide, two-bedroom house! YIKES!" wrote the proud grandmother. "Can you tell I am excited? I just had to share! We are ready to 'embrace the chaos.' "

I also heard from Erin Lund, the mother of the only set of triplets born in 2009. January 19 was their first birthday.

Like Donnelly, Lund and her husband sought fertility treatments from Dr. Edwin Robins, a reproductive endocrinologist who moved to Spokane in 1998 and established the Center for Reproductive Health.

"Dr. Robins and his staff are wonderful," Lund wrote. "My children are a blessing. They are a lot of work, but they are wonderful."

And, like Donnelly and other parents of triplets, Lund gets stopped all the time by people on the streets. They want to know if her kids are twins, but as soon as she points out they're triplets, she is inundated with questions people wouldn't normally ask. "I am usually very open about it because it is such an oddity to see," Lund wrote. "It seems everyone wants to see them, thinking that they are the same, but they are three separate individuals who just happen to come from the same place at the same time."

Arlene Mowatt of Cheney, Wash., told me about the attention she and her brothers, Ray and Ron, got when they were born on July 8, 1941.

"We made headlines in the Spokesman then because we were the first set of triplets born at Sacred Heart hospital and it was so rare," Mowatt wrote. "My mother and father lived on a farm south of Cheney and did not yet have electricity and indoor plumbing! The Spokesman did a story when we graduated from Cheney High in 1959, and when we celebrated our 50th and 60th birthdays. We all still live in the area and hope to celebrate our 70th in a year and a half."

Good things do indeed come in threes.