Greg Wilkins remembers having to bike to practices as a kid because his dad was working.
“I knew he loved me, but if I wanted to spend time with him, it was while we were working,” said Wilkins.
It was something he remembered when he became a father.
“With my own kids, I learned pretty quickly that it’s important to have that family time,” Wilkins said.
Baseball and soccer and softball and school clubs – Wilkins wants to be there.
Wilkins and his wife Darlene had it all. They were childhood sweethearts, settled in New Ipswich and ready to start a family. But they were reaching the end of their options to conceive naturally or with fertility treatments, and had even begun looking into adoption when their doctor offered to have them participate in a new fertility drug study.
The two decided to take part as one last attempt to have their own children. Three eggs were implanted, and there was a 30 percent chance that only one of them would come to term.
Imagine their surprise when nearly eight months later Darlene was able to deliver three baby boys – Chris, Nathan and Matthew. All healthy, if premature.
“They were such small babies, you could fit them in your hand,” said Wilkins.
As first-time parents, it would have been easy to become overwhelmed having to care for three children at the same time, said Wilkins. Nathan was ready to come home first, and they were able to get a taste of the routine of one baby before having to deal with all three.
But despite squabbling over who had to get up in the middle of the night to feed Chris – by far the slowest eater, Wilkins recalled wryly – they received such overwhelming support from their friends and family that they were able to get a handle on it.
“We had people, complete strangers, dropping off dinner,” said Wilkins. “That’s what I really love about this town, that sense of community that is here.”
And three years later, just as the couple was faced with the decision of whether or not they wanted to try for another baby before the expiration of the embryos from their fertility treatments, the decision was taken out of their hands when Darlene discovered she was pregnant with their daughter, Katie.
“My wife called me and said, ‘Guess what?’ I told her, ‘I thought we couldn’t do that. So Katie was something of a surprise,” said Wilkins.
Now, with the triplets heading into high school next year, and Katie 11, things still haven’t slowed down much, said Wilkins.
“Things were busy when they were babies, and they’re still busy now,” he said.
And he doesn’t want to miss any of it.
That means doing things like taking the week off work to take his daughter to Tennessee to watch her compete in the Destination Imagination global competition.
“It was a crazy time for him to go, but he made it work,” said Darlene.
Or making time for a family trip to Maine each year – and once cutting that trip short to drive his sons back to New Hampshire for their All Star baseball opener.
“He’s a great dad,” said Chris. “He drives us to all of our sports and attends all of our games. He has not missed one game and driven halfway across New Hampshire to see us play soccer. And that’s not even a quarter of what he does for us.”
“He is always so kind and generous,” said Matthew.
“He puts us before himself to make sure that we’re always having fun, like skiing and soccer or going on vacation.”
“It’s a lot, but everything I miss it eats at me,” said Wilkins. “I don’t want to miss anything. I can always work later. I’m not going to have this forever.”