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 KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Over the last 26 months, there's been joy, sadness and surprise for a Kansas City, Kansas woman. She's delivered three sets of twins in that short time. 
 
 It's obvious that Danesha Couch has her hands full when you see her with two-year-old Danarius and one-year-olds Delilah and Davina. 
 
 "Three babies walking within a couple of months," said Couch. 
 
 Then you see that she really has her hands full. 
 
 She's holding Dalanie and Darla who were born last month and just came home after three weeks in neonatal intensive care. They're Couch's third set of twins and her second with her fiance. 
 
 "People just consider me a freak of nature when I tell them," Couch said. 
 
 With no fertility treatment, she had three sets. You see, Danarius is a twin, too. His brother, Desmond, died shortly after birth from complications of prematurity. 
 
 "That was a pretty bad time," Couch recalled. 
 
 She thought it was a fluke when she had twins a second time. Why did she become pregnant a third time? 
 
 "I love babies," she said. 
 
 What are the odds of having three sets? According to one report from Britain, it's one in 88,000. 
 
 "The fact that you've ever done it before makes you more likely to do it again," said Dr. Elizabeth Wickstrom of Shawnee Mission Medical Center. 
 
 Dr. Wickstrom said that's true with fraternal twins but not identical. She added that women of African descent are more likely to have multiple multiples. 
 
 "I release more than one egg at a time," said Couch. 
 
 "So you have two eggs simultaneously coming down the tubes getting ready to be fertilized," said Dr. Wickstrom. 
 
 Couch added, "My regrets would be timing, but I'm really happy that I can even create babies or have life because some women can't do that." 
 
 The 20-year-old doesn't mind the piles of laundry and the sleepless nights. But she and her fiance are not planning to have any more children -- more twins -- for at least 10 years. Couch and Jeffrey Pressler plan to marry in September. 
 
 Couch said she attempted to apply for benefits but was denied, and started a fund page to help her growing family. ||||| KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A mother in Kansas has her hands full after giving birth to her third set of twins in just over two years. 
 
 WDAF-TV (http://bit.ly/29UNr5D ) reports that 20-year-old Danesha Couch of Kansas City, Kansas, says she has not undergone any fertility treatment and realizes that some people might consider her "a freak of nature." 
 
 Couch delivered two boys 26 months ago. One of them died, but the survivor, Danarius, is a busy toddler. She also has twin 1-year-olds, Delilah and Davina. 
 
 And last month, Dalanie and Darla were born. They just arrived home after three weeks in neonatal intensive care. 
 
 Couch and her fiance plan to marry in September, but she says they don't plan to have any more children for at least 10 years. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Information from: WDAF-TV, http://www.wdaftv4.com ||||| Kansas City, Mo. -- (The Today Show) Healthy and thriving at more than 9 pounds each, they smile and wiggle, preemie twin boys whose mother feared the worst when she went into labor about four months early. But mom Elene Cowan calls their survival a miracle after her sons were born 39 days apart, another unusual instance of tiny twins arriving on different days. 
 
 "I didn't think miracles happen but I know they did," said Cowan, 30, an emergency room nurse who slipped her engagement ring around her firstborn son's wrist when he was about a week old. "When your ring can fit around your son's arm and now you're holding him and feeding him and playing with him on the floor, that can only be a miracle." 
 
 Cowan, who delivered Carl at 24 weeks on Jan. 20, and David Jr. at nearly 30 weeks on March 28, credits her doctor with making the right decision to delay the second delivery for as long as possible to improve David's chances despite the risk of infection or other complications. 
 
 The five weeks between vaginal deliveries at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri, were agonizing for Cowan, who was torn between tending to Carl in the neonatal intensive care unit and resting to protect her fragile pregnancy. 
 
 "It was awful being pregnant and going to the NICU and being worried about one baby inside of you and worried about one baby outside of you," Cowan said. 
 
 Her scary ordeal began in January, when she and her husband, David, flew home to Missouri from Saudi Arabia, where he works as an emergency room doctor. Within hours, she didn't feel right and wondered if she was dehydrated. 
 
 But doctors found that Carl's amniotic sac was entering the birth canal, Cowan's cervix was starting to dilate and she was having contractions. With medication and other treatments, her labor was stalled for about a week, when she gave birth to Carl, tiny at 1.4 pounds. 
 
 "I just thought there's no way he's going to survive," Cowan said. But in the silence of the operating room, she knew he was alive. "He had two little cries. That made me really happy." 
 
 Her obstetrician, Dr. Howard Schwartz, said in an interview that he believed that Cowan suffered from an incompetent cervix, a condition where weak cervical tissue can cause premature birth. He placed a stitch to hold her cervix closed, and ordered antibiotics and medications to stall labor. 
 
 "The opportunity to buy time was the reason for trying to do the procedure to separate their births," he said, noting that there is about a 50 percent chance of survival for babies born at 24 weeks. 
 
 Cowan's labor became unstoppable again in late March, when David was born, weighing more than twice that of brother, at 2.9 pounds. 
 
 "I thought, 'Oh my gosh. He is the biggest baby ever,'" she said, noting that her husband watched the birth from Saudi Arabia through a video call. 
 
 The boys stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit for weeks, finally going home in late May, about a week after their due date of May 11. Doctors told Cowan the fraternal twins, will be "perfectly healthy normal little boys," though Carl remains on oxygen. 
 
 Schwartz said he has treated at least six women carrying multiple fetuses with an incompetent cervix the same way as Cowan over the last 15 years. It is not commonly done, he said, because doctors are taught to deliver multiples at the same time. The delayed approach, he said, is "outside the normal mindset." 
 
 But, Schwartz said, with the right conditions and willing parents, it can work. "Thirty-nine days apart with both babies surviving is unusual, and yes, beats the odds," Schwartz said. 
 
 Read more: http://on.today.com/1pdwIsH 
 
 Photo courtesy of Elene Cowan. 
 
 39 days apart, born, miracle, preemie twins 
 
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– A mother in Kansas has her hands full after giving birth to her third set of twins in just over two years, the AP reports. Per WDAF-TV, 20-year-old Danesha Couch of Kansas City, Kan., says she hasn't undergone any fertility treatments and realizes that some people might consider her "a freak of nature." Couch delivered two boys 26 months ago. One of them died, but the survivor, Danarius, is a busy toddler. She also has twin 1-year-olds, Delilah and Davina, and last month, Dalanie and Darla were born. They just arrived home after three weeks in neonatal intensive care. Couch says she loves babies and that the only misgivings she has about her situation is in "the timing." But even that she's taking in stride. "I'm really happy that I can even create babies or have life because some women can't do that," she says. She says she has applied for benefits and been denied, so she set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for expenses for her five little ones. "I try best i can as a mother but sometimes i need help and honestly im not to proud to ask," she writes. Couch and her fiance, who's the dad of two of the sets of twins, plan to marry in September, but she says they don't plan to have any other children for at least 10 years.