Photographs by William Taufic.
Like a storybook stork, Leelee Klein of Darien brings a special bundle to new parents of preemies. Her experience as the mother of twins—born at twenty-six weeks and under two pounds each—adds sweetness and strength to her role as President of The Tiny Miracles Foundation (TTMF), a group that supports parents in caring for their premature babies.
“Most of the time, there’s no warning,” says Leelee. “And you feel guilt, fear, anger and an incredible sense of loneliness. Your baby is taken away while the woman next to you is holding her baby in her arms. The first time you see your baby, she’s attached to wires, beepers and monitors.” Her girls, Grace and Larsen, will turn a healthy ten years old in January. But Leelee has not forgotten the stress she and her husband, Michael, faced; Grace was in the hospital for three-and-a-half months and Larsen went home at four months.
“The only place I could sit and pump [breast milk] privately at the hospital was an old converted cleaning closet,” Leelee says. That’s why she’s so proud that TTMF has furnished family resource rooms at Stamford and Norwalk hospitals. Open 24/7 for NICU families, the rooms have Internet service, toys for siblings, a couch, TV and DVD player and a bookcase full of books about preemies. The group plans a room at Bridgeport Hospital next.
TTMF volunteers—most of them mothers of preemies themselves—can train to be mentors in the resource rooms and visit moms in the NICU and on bed rest. At all three hospitals, TTMF provides Tiny Treasures Welcome Bags, each with a soft Ookie bonding doll (which retains mom’s scent and can be placed with babies in the NICU), a mini hospital-approved shirt, and more. Families also receive home-care kits with preemie clothes and diapers, bottles and other supplies when their babies are discharged.
“My experience was so traumatic, I probably didn’t get a normal night’s sleep for the first year and a half of my twins’ lives,” says Leelee. “That’s why I’m helping other families. It’s medically proven that babies have a better outcome if parents know how to take care of them.”
Says Becky Esposito of Darien, a TTMF volunteer, “Leelee’s energy turned a small seed into a tree that supports over 800 families a year.” With the rate of preterm births in the U.S. now topping one in ten, TTMF is more important than ever.
Visit ttmf.org or call 203-202-9714.