Mother of triplets asks for help
By Ian Elliot
Local News - Thursday, August 25, 2005 @ 07:00
A Kingston woman who gave birth to triplets is appealing for help.
Melanie Molaro, 31, gave birth to three little girls – Lillian, Abigail and
Reilly – on June 16. Her marriage to her husband of five years ended while she
was pregnant.
The suddenly single mother, who had studied hairdressing at St. Law-rence
College, was a stay-at-home mom to her daughters Maddison, 3, and Caitlyn, 11.
She’s thrilled that the triplets, born by cesarean at 32 weeks and weighing in
at birth at about three pounds each, are finally home after nearly a month in
the neonatal intensive care unit.
“It’s really nice to be able to pick them up,” she said.
But she’s struggling to outfit them with tiny clothes and diapers and all the
other things babies need. With the support of her doctor, she’s asking for
help.
“You can imagine everything a baby goes through in a day. Well, multiply that
by three,” she said in an interview this week.
“Between the three of them and the outfits and blankets they spit up on or get
dirty, it’s a load of laundry every day, and then there are my older two
daughters and my own clothes."
She can’t accept cash because social services would deduct it from her next
cheque.
Molaro has written to diaper makers and other makers of baby supplies, who’ll
often provide the parents of multiples a quantity of their products, but says
she’d like anyone in Kingston who has baby clothing or items that they no
longer need to consider donating them to her.
“There’s no support for multiples unless you go out and do the work
yourself, and that’s what I’ve been doing,” she explained.
“I’ve even written letters to formula makers, although they can’t have
regular formula until they’re six months. They’re on a special formula right
now that has double the amount of everything.”
Social services provides only half the special formula she needs in a month. She
has to buy the rest.
The busy mom has a letter of support from her obstetrician, Kingston’s Graeme
Smith, who notes that although her pregnancy was uncomplicated, her life
afterwards is not.
“Unfortunately, because she finds herself in a difficult social circumstance,
any support in terms of donations in kind would likely be greatly appreciated by
this woman and would facilitate care of these children,” he wrote.
Smith said in an interview that Molaro got counselling from the pediatric social
worker as mothers of multiples routinely get, but the sheer fact of dealing with
three babies under difficult circumstances warranted the call for extra help.
The girls are thriving, with the heaviest now eight pounds and her two sisters
over seven pounds apiece.
Molaro said she’s coping well, all things considered, although she doesn’t
know what she’ll do when her oldest daughter returns from the East Coast,
where she’s been staying with family.
“My car only has space for four passengers and I’ve got three baby seats in
the back and a seat for Maddison in the front. I don’t know how I’m going to
manage when my oldest daughter comes home.”
She’s also in the process of moving as the place she’s in is rented from her
former in-laws.
Her sister is visiting from the east coast to help her with the day-to-day
business of dealing with three infants, but she said making the transition from
one baby at a time to three all at once has been daunting.
“I go out and buy a big box of diapers thinking it’s going to last a while
and in a week, they’ve gone through it.”
The chances of having triplets is one in 8,100 and several women in her family
have had twins, a factor that raises a woman’s odds of a multiple birth.
Molaro had an inkling of what she had early in her pregnancy because of her
size.
“I was showing at three months, which I thought was pretty early and I joked
that they must be twins,” she recalled with a laugh.
“I was pretty stunned when they said I was going to be having triplets.”
She’s a bit uncomfortable making a public appeal but says she can’t supply
the girls with everything they need on her own – although the big things,
including a triple stroller, she’s obtained from friends.
She says she’s going to pay forward anything people give her.
“I tell myself when I’m done with the things, I’ll be able to help out
three other people with them,” she said.
Anyone able to help can contact her at 583-5051.
ielliot@thewhig.com