For three years, Stephen and Andrea Cirbee tried to have a baby. Nothing seemed to work.

Doctors took his sperm and her eggs, mixed them in a lab dish, and put them back in Andrea Cirbee a year ago. It didn’t work.

“We had a lot of hope,” she said. “We held each other and said we’re going to do it again.”

They kept praying and tried in vitro fertilization again last fall. It worked – times three.

On Friday, Andrea Cirbee had triplets at Broward General Medical Center. Mother and her three sons are doing well.

The fraternal triplets already have distinct personalities, their mom said: — Michael Vincent, 4 pounds, 5 ounces, was born first. He’s like his dad, adventurous and spontaneous.

— A minute later, the smallest child, John “Jack” Daniel, was born. At 3 pounds, 4 ounces, Jack will have to stay in the hospital longer than his brothers, but he’s a spirited fighter.

— The last born child is the biggest, Thomas Christopher, who weighed in at 4 pounds, 14 ounces. He is the most easy-going.

The three boys are a result of “a lot of prayers and a lot of good science combined,” said Joanne Shea, Andrea Cirbee’s mother.

Stephen Cirbee is walking around their Naples home humming the tune to the 1960s TV sitcom My Three Sons.

In vitro triplets are rare, but not unheard of in South Florida. In vitro triplets were born at West Boca Medical Center in November 1992.

About one of every five attempts at in vitro fertilization results in a baby. And fewer than one in 200 in vitro pregnancies ends up as triplets, said Dr. Adam Cooper, who helped deliver the Cirbee triplets.

Getting to that delivery has not been easy for the Cirbees.

After an unsuccessful try last summer, doctors implanted four fertilized eggs in Andrea Cirbee in the fall, hoping one would survive.

On October 11, 1993, the Cirbees found out she was pregnant. They were living in Maryland at the time. The next day, they moved to Naples for Stephen Cirbee’s new construction job.

Andrea Cirbee had her first sonogram on Nov. 17. The doctors told her she’d have twins.

A month later, after the second sonogram, doctors told Andrea Cirbee: “Merry Christmas, you’re having triplets.”

Because Andrea Cirbee weighed only 107 pounds before she was pregnant, doctors discussed “selective reduction,” eliminating a fetus.

“I said, ‘Nope, they’re mine, they’re keepers,'” the new mom said. But there was still a lot of time and travel to go. Naples didn’t have a hospital equipped to handle the pregnancy, so in April, when she started to have labor pains, Andrea Cirbee was flown by helicopter to Orlando.

The family decided Fort Lauderdale was closer to Stephen Cirbee’s work in Naples and his mother in Fort Lauderdale, so Andrea Cirbee was moved again.

She was in Broward General for two months until she gave birth, by Caesarean section, on Friday.

“We knew it was going to be chaos, but it’s wonderful chaos,” she said.

Luckily, the boys are sleeping fairly well. So well, it was Monday afternoon before his mother saw Michael open his eyes. Andrea Cirbee cooed, and Michael opened his dark eyes and looked up at his mom for the first time.

A few feet away, Cooper said, “It’s kind of a miracle.”