NewsLocal NewsGrand Rapids

Actions

Parents of twins giving back to NICU team at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital with Pillow Case Drive

Posted at 12:42 PM, Feb 23, 2021
and last updated 2021-02-23 16:55:24-05

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Grand Rapids family who just brought their twins home from the NICU is giving back to the team at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital.

RELATED: GR family celebrates bringing twins born via gestational carrier home from NICU

The Myers family is putting together a ‘colorful pillow case drive’ to flood the nurses with linens to use inside all of their incubators. Despite going through their own struggles, they tell FOX 17 that they owe everything to those nurses and doctors.

“The staff at Helen DeVos has been phenomenal,” Tammy Myers said.

Myers is overwhelmed with gratitude for the NICU team who took care of her twins Eames and Ellison when they were born several weeks early.

She said, “Just the care that they put into loving our babies and helping them grow. I just found myself sitting there for hours trying to figure out what I could do to thank them.”

The answer: Pillow cases.

Myers explained, “It gets pretty boring in the hospital rooms, especially in NICU rooms and the nurses kind of fight for all the pretty pillowcases that they use as sheets inside the little incubators and isolettes.”

As you can imagine, the staff goes through linens quickly.

“They kind of noted that it’s hard to get the good ones, because they have to wash them so much that they fade and they start looking old and weathered,” Myers said.

Tammy and her husband Jordan recently got to bring home their twins who were born via gestational carrier. Their legal struggles for parental rights have been getting a lot of attention.

Myers said, “Everyone keeps reaching out and asking what they can do to help.”

RELATED: GR couple denied legal rights to biological twins due to 'outdated' Michigan fertility laws

And while they said the offers are appreciated, instead of asking for help for themselves, they’re turning it into a chance to help others with a pillow case drive.

“If people wanted to donate gently used or new pillowcases, standard twin sized pillowcases, they can order from the Amazon link or even drop them off at the Fertility Center here in Grand Rapids,” Myers said.

The Amazon wish list will send the donations to the Myers directly. They’ll gather everything together to make one big donation.

Colorful, printed, and fun pillow cases are preferred, but all donations are welcome.

All of those donations will then be delivered to the hospital on what would have been the twin's due date, March 3rd; A milestone the Myers feel is worth celebrating.

They’ve partnered with the Fertility Center of Grand Rapids to collect donations as well.

There are drop boxes at the Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo locations below.

Grand Rapids: 3230 Eagle Park Dr NE, Suite 100, Grand Rapids MI, 49525

Kalamazoo: 317 S Drake Rd. Kalamazoo, MI 49009