​National Multiple Births Awareness Day (NMBAD) is on Sunday, May 28th, 2023. MBC has a focus on improving the mental health of the Canadian multiple birth community and that is why it is our collective responsibility to step up and help each other. We do that by connecting and by making ourselves understood – using our online and in-person presence wherever possible. This year's theme Is Demystifying Multiple Births: Sharing Our Unique Stories. 

 

Throughout the lifecycle of being a parent of multiples, being a multiple, being a family of multiples, being friends to multiples, or even knowing a family that has multiples – we encounter thoughts, beliefs, sayings, falsehoods, injustices, hardships, joys, societal classifications that do not represent reality, and prove that people outside our community are not educated about being in our community. To support our theme we will continue to provide support, educate, research, and provide advocacy to our community.

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This year we really want to focus on Sharing Stories! We wanted to start off and share part of MBC Vice-Chair and Director of Marketing, Bryan Segal's story:

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• I am a father of beautiful 10 year old twins

• The experience of having, raising kids is hard – but very rewarding

• The multiples community helped me in my times of need

• The community continues to be a source of inspiration and support

• There are families who had a situation that is lot worse than mine, and I wanted to help

• There was a path already forged when I had my kids, and without the history of MBC and my Chapter it would have
  made life much harder

• Having a community that understands my challenges was essential

• Having multiples is a higher degree of difficulty – and I believe it is a multiplier of challenges, not a sum

• When it gets hard – it is doubly hard or triply hard. But when it is joyful – it is awesome

• It was refreshing to know people understood my situation – and having multiples is a blessing – but getting an
  “instant family” has its challenges
   

To sum it up, our multiple births community gave me joy, happiness, hope, help, support, guidance, a virtual hug, and
overall a feeling that I was going to survive and thrive. That is what we do! And having MBC and the local chapters
helped me survive, and ensure I always had a place I belonged and had support.

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Multiple Births Canada and the local Chapters are always working on engaging with the community, delivering key materials, supporting members, and overall being a key touchpoint to connecting parents of multiple births with other parents. We are looking to continue all the great work and expand on it moving forward. We know it is not easy, and mix that in with the reality of the world today, it compounds the difficulty.

 

We challenge you all to share your story, and help us Demystify Multiple Births life.
Your story is unique. Your story is real. We want to hear all about it.