Expert Interview: Terri Gillis NOMOTC President

This week's expert is Terri Gillis, the newest president on the National Organization of Mothers of Twins Club (NOMOTC). Lani and I both know Terri from our local club, which Terri is a member of. Our local club has done so much for both of us, heck that's how we met! If you have any further questions feel free to contact us, or NOMOTC directly.

What are some of the benefits of joining a multiples club?

I’ve attached the NOMOTC Marketing brochure which speaks to the benefits of your club joining National and the services provided (readers if you would like a copy of this please email multiplesandmoreblog@yahoo.com). More importantly for the parents joining local clubs, the benefits are many; beginning with finding other parents/moms who have walked in their shoes and can offer advice on parenting multiples; clothing and equipment exchanges that provide a savings to parents looking for multiple related items; networking opportunities to learn best practices from “those who have walked in our shoes, or are walking in our shoes” that we can learn from; and friendships that are created when moms bond with each other.

What if there are no local clubs, how do you go about starting your own multiples club?

NOMOTC can help. They publish a booklet called “How to Organize A Club” which provides a guide to get you started. Their membership department is also there to answer questions along the way. And, they have affiliate memberships for parents who can’t find a club but want to be a part of the NOMOTC team. They can join and take advantage of the services and receive NOMOTC’s Notebook.


What kind of questions can the volunteers at NOMOTC answer?

When selecting our volunteers, we match volunteers up to the areas that best suit their skills and/or experience. For example, the Higher Order Multiples Coordinator, who is there to assist with questions regarding triplets or greater, is a parent who has higher order multiples. And, the Special Needs Coordinator would typically be a parent who has multiples with special needs or training in this area. Another area key for clubs is our Parliamentarian services. This position is contacted by clubs who need guidance or assistance with internal club matters and we often help clubs resolve issues that may arise.

How can MoM's become more involved in NOMOTC?

VOLUNTEER! Contact volunteer@nomotc.org and ask for a volunteer form and for more information on the volunteer positions available. We run our organization of 26,000 members with approximately 85 volunteers and one full time employee. Key departments looking for volunteers each year are: Publicity and Website, Education (Notebook), Membership, and Research.

Multiples and More Question of the Week: Holiday Traditions

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• Grab the button, add it to a new post on your OWN blog
• Answer the Question of the Week on your blog (spice it up with pictures and/or video if possible!)
  
• Stop back here, and sign into the Mr. Linky
• Click on the other names in the Mr. Linky and check out everyone else's answers
• Don't want to blog about it? No problem, just answer the question in our comments section!

Moneywise MoM: Holiday Cards

Now that it's December, I'm sure you're busy with the hustle and bustle of the holidays in addition to the usual hustle and bustle of your multiples. I thought I'd devote this month's Moneywise MoM post to Holiday Cards. Are you planning to do cards? Keep meaning to get a photo? I have some ideas for you to make it easy and inexpensive:

1) Consider not doing any. You don't have to do cards at all. You have two (or three or four) great excuses. Just give yourself a break and let it go. You can aim for next year if you choose.

2) Send virtual greetings. To save yourself time and money, consider sending an email or e-card this year. Write a quick update on how the kiddos are doing, attach a few photos, and you're done. If you want to spend more time, you could scrapbook a card traditionally and scan it into your computer, or create a digital scrapbook card to email. There are even services now, like MistleMail, that will do the work for you.

3) Alter your timeline. If you're like a lot of moms (ahem) who thought they'd bounce back to their old selves after the multiples arrived, you probably want to send cards and update friends and family with a photo and be as Martha as you can under the circumstances. My first year with the twins, I stressed and couldn't get a photo of all three until New Year's Eve. It was like a light bulb went on--I can send New Year's cards!--which gave me until mid to late January to get the cards out in the mail. Give yourself more time and don't worry about the matching holiday outfits.

4) Take your own photo. Do you have snow outside? Bundle the kids up and go out with the camera. Do you have decorations and/or a tree in the house? Put the kids in front with a prop--a book to look at, toys, etc.--and start snapping away. Don't worry about all the kids looking at the camera at the same time; it's hard to do! Keep them focused on an activity and you'll get their genuine expressions and adorable faces. I had trouble keeping all three kids in the frame (you too?), so I've done collage cards on sites like Shutterfly and Snapfish. You can take single photos of each child and put them together on the front of the card. By taking your own photos, you avoid the expense of studio portraits plus the stress it causes you.

5) Do it this weekend. Are you ready? Snap a photo or three and head over to SeeHere to make a 4x8 or 5x7 photocard. See my blog post for the code to get 50 photocards FREE and only pay shipping ($3.19). You can be done by Monday. That's my goal for this weekend; we put the tree up tonight and we're expecting snow in the morning. One way or the other, I'm getting a photo.


I hope you'll stop by my blog to check out more strategies and tips for saving money on your family budget. Best wishes for a healthy, happy holiday season!

Guest Blogger: Sindy of Food Don't Grow on Trees

Today's guest blogger is Sindy, of Food Don't Grow On Trees. Sindy is the mom of 18 month old B/B/B triplets, and clearly blessed with the gift of writing. Her blog is both real, and hilariously entertaining.



I was driving back home after visiting Georgetown Hospital with the triplets. Barely four months old and SKINNY and BLUE needed their hips and pelvics examined to make sure the cramped quarters of my uterus where they spent 34 weeks wasn’t going to cause them lifelong physical deformities. The sky turned gray-black as we left. The radio announcer warned of a brutal storm and told us to stay indoors. Too late. The already dense rush hour traffic crawled as traffic lights went dead. The triplets started to scream. They were hungry. So was I. I pulled into the Chevy Chase library, loaded SWOOSH and BLUE into the duo stroller and tucked SKINNY into a baby carrier slung around my waist. There were no lights in the library. No power to help the hum of the computers tamp down the sound of three infants wailing. I went into the children’s section and couldn’t decide what to do first. Change diapers? All three were wet. Feed them? Which one first? An old man sitting at the next table looked up from his book and stared. What was he doing in the children’s section anyway? I started to cry. You came up to me, a woman I’d never seen before and said simply “Let me have one.” I handed BLUE over. Pacing back and forth and cooing, you fed him and calmed me. Whoever you were, Thank you.

I was turning Toys-R-Us gift cards into diapers. You looked into the stroller and smiled. Then you noticed the squirming coming from my “shoulder bag” and looked concerned. “Triplets,” I said then gave you a peek at the third baby. “You’re the woman,” you said. “You’re every woman! Errrrr-vry last one of them!” Almost a year and a half later and I still crack up thinking about it. I needed to laugh badly that day. Whoever you were, Thank you.

It was Mother’s Day, the perfect day for the triplets’ first official outing and we went to church. After services you came up to me and told me you’d wanted a girl so badly but you kept having boys. Five of them. Then surprise twins – a boy and a girl. “That’s so wonderful,” I started but you shook your head and wiped tears away fast. “She died after three days,” you said and I had no words. You handed me a pink gift bag packed full of baby girl clothes your angel would never wear. You never told me your name. I never saw you again. Be blessed, whoever you were. And Thank you.

Four days before my babies’ first Christmas I found myself scared and desperate. Ten month old triplets with colds that threatened to never end and a relationship turned abusive. I packed the van with as much as it would hold, asked God to watch over me and my children and headed south. 900 miles. 3 days. Alone, but not really. You showed up in rest stops in Virginia and Georgia, gas stations in North and South Carolina, McDonald’s parking lots in Florida. “I’m alone with three babies, can you please watch the car so I can go to the bathroom?” A dozen and a half of you – travelling alone, travelling with husbands and friends, travelling with little ones of your own – moms and grandmoms. You all said yes. Whoever you were, Thank you.

It’s so much easier getting three toddlers into a place than to get them out. I see that now. But I am not so good at learning my lesson the first time around…or the fifth. So, whoever you were who chased down my runaway boy in the library stacks – Thank you. Whoever you were who left your treadmill workout to help me get the triplets out of the gym and into the van – Thank you. Whoever you were who instructed your five year old to climb up into that blasted McDonalds’ Playland contraption and fetch my child – Thank you.

To the sisterhood of moms and grandmoms and moms-to-be-hopefully-someday who offered a kind word, a joke, a knowing smile, patience, a helping hand to me these last 21 months – Thank you, thank you, whoever you were. Thank you.

Shout Out of The Week: Pyjammy's Blog

Product Review (and Giveaway!): PeaceLoveMom

Featured Blogger: Jessica of Four Plus an Angel

This weeks featured blogger is Jessica from Four Plus an Angel. Jessica is the proud MoM to 14 year old Ashlyn, 2 year old surviving triplets McKenna and Parker, her angel Hadley and 6 month old Sawyer. I cannot express in words how thankful I am that Jessica wanted to be interviewed about the loss of Hadley, I hope it touches you as much as it did me.


What made you decide to start a blog?

I was admitted to the hospital when I was 18 weeks pregnant with the triplets so we started the blog to keep our friends and family up to date on my pregnancy while I was in the hospital.

How was your pregnancy?

Needless to say, we were shocked to find out we were having triplets. We were told I was pregnant with twins and had finally adjusted to the idea of two babies when we went for my 10 week ultrasound and they found another little one in there. I was doing really well until my 18 week check up when I was immediately admitted to the hospital. I had little to no cervix left and was contracting off and on so I spent the rest of my pregnancy flat on my back in the hospital. I remember thinking I was going to lose my mind staring at those four walls of my hospital room for 10 whole weeks. As other MOMs had told me though, the bedrest was nothing compared to watching my children struggle in the NICU. Looking back now, done anything in the world to even get one more week further.


What was your delivery like?

My delivery was fast, everything happened very quickly. I had been contracting off and on my entire hospital stay and on this particular day was contracting pretty regularly. While they were monitoring the babies they saw several drops in baby B's heart rate so decided to deliver me immediately. My husband raced there from work and within an hour or so I had my three precious babies. They were all so tiny, Parker was 1lb. 14 oz, Hadley was 2lb. 5 oz and McKenna was 2lb. 10 oz. I saw them for few seconds and then they were whisked away to the NICU.


What were the days after delivery like?

After preparing ourselves to deliver many times over my weeks in the hospital, I managed to make it to 28 weeks 5 days so we thought we were out of the woods for any life-threatening complications. I remember thinking that the babies were going to do great because we had already beat the odds by making it so far. Two days after my delivery the doctors came to my room and asked us to come down to the NICU because our baby C, Hadley, was having some difficulties and they wanted to discuss treatment options with us. She had suffered a pulmonary hemorrhage and needed a transfusion so we quickly signed paperwork giving our permission for the transfusion and headed to her side. By the time we got to her she had hemorrhaged again and they were trying to keep her alive until the transfusion could get to her. I knew things were bad when they let me hold her even though she was hooked up to so many machines. She passed away in my arms several minutes later. In an instant we went from the overjoyed parents of triplets to the devastated parents of one angel and two tiny preemies who still weren't out of the woods themselves. My husband and I spent hours in my hospital room just sobbing. I just kept thinking that this could not be happening and the grief I felt was overwhelming. The grief can still be overwhelming some days and I look back now and wonder how I managed to put one foot in front of the other each day but somehow we made it. We went through the typical rollercoaster of events that you hear about from many NICU parents with our two survivors. It was always one step forward and two back and I was terrified we would lose one of them too. They came home right before Christmas after almost 3 months in the NICU and are now happy, healthy 2 year olds with no signs of the struggles they faced and a special angel watching over them each day.


What resources did you use to help you cope after Hadley passed?

After Hadley passed I found CLIMB, the Center for Loss in Multiple Births. Their website (www.climb-support.org) is full of resources and I found a lot of comfort in reading other peoples' stories and knowing that my feelings were normal. I also met many amazing loss moms through the Bereavement Forum on Triplet Connections and a yahoo group called eLIMBO that is also for moms who have lost a multiple. We have since started a group on Facebook for moms who have lost one or more triplets, I don't know what I would do without the unending support of the many loss moms I have met.


What are some of your favorite activities to do as a family?

As a family we love to just be together. My husband has long hours during the week so the weekends are playtime. We love going for walks, to the park or on our boat although our boat rides are pretty short these days!


What is your favorite tip for keeping your house and/or life organized?