Life is busy enough with one child. But with multiples, it’s, well, multiplied. The Allen/McKinney Area Moms of Multiples Club, which formed 12 years ago, aims to help moms of multiples come together for some grown-up conversation and a forum for airing out the day-to-day stresses, questions and concerns of taking care of little ones.
Club president Christi Freitas, whose twins Emma and Andon will be 4 in February, says the group has 68 member families, including nine moms-to-be who are pregnant with multiples. One family has triplets, but the majority of the group’s multiples are “just” twins, she says.
“And a lot of our families have children in addition to their multiples,” she says. “It’s a very wide variety of families.”
→ The group meets once per month. It’s a really tight-knit group because we’re experiencing all these new things at the same time. I just moved here from California; it’s my second year with the club and my first year as the club’s president. I came from a huge (parents of multiples) group into this one, and it’s great being in a smaller group. I wanted to make the meetings more fun for our moms. So, every month we have a speaker and dinner catered by a local restaurant.
Moms can come and not have to worry about making anything; just have dinner and have fun with their friends. The monthly speakers touch on topics that all moms can identify with. Sometimes it kind of focuses on you as a mother, and other months it focuses on you as a person, or a wife or a woman.
→ The meetings also serve as a forum for moms of multiples to ask questions. There are a million questions that you don’t always have time for in the doctor’s office. We give each other information and support and answers.
We always try to go out after the meetings – to a restaurant, Starbucks or wherever we can hang out and talk. Unfortunately, some of our moms only get away from their kids that one night a month, so we try to do something to let them relax.
→ We have a couple big fundraisers every year and annual activities like breakfast with Santa, the Easter egg hunt and blanket knitting for area Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU). We also hold a big community garage sale at the end of the summer and photo sessions twice a year that are open to all area families.
→ Club dues are $30 per year; moms who are pregnant with multiples get free membership until their babies are 3 months old. We usually choose a cause to donate to. We have a member who is a breast cancer survivor, so we donate a lot to breast cancer research. We also donate to hospital NICUs, since a lot of our children were in NICUs after they were born. This year the moms have pulled together to help fellow club members who have suffered personal and financial troubles.
→ It’s been a crazy year as president. It’s been a challenge, but I really have enjoyed being able to help our own group. We’re helping out families in the group who are in desperate need, and that’s been great.
