When Martha Sharkey gave birth to identical twins at just 23 weeks, her world changed forever. What began as a terrifying journey through grief and uncertainty eventually blossomed into a national nonprofit supporting thousands of NICU families. In this heartfelt conversation, Martha opens up about leading a life of purpose, the role of community, and what success, legacy, and confidence mean to her.
What does leading a life that you love look like for you?
I am leading a life that I love. All of us go through different hills and valleys in life, and all of them look different. We experience those hills and valleys and decide which direction we’re going to take with the valleys that we experience in a lot of cases. When my husband and I found out we were expecting and we welcomed our identical twin girls prematurely at 23 weeks and five days, it was a very, very scary time. We were thrown into the NICU. We didn’t know what our future was going to look like or if our daughters would survive. I didn’t know that the valley we were going through at that time would lead me in the direction of starting an organization that our family founded.
For me, leading the life you love is finding something you’re passionate about. Some people can’t do that in their professional career based on family needs or the area they studied in college, or they were definitely on a path. But I think finding something that you’re passionate about — that you can give back to — can help lead the life that you love.
How do you balance ambition and a fulfilling life?
I’m not sure the balance is there. Balance is something I continue to work on. I don’t like to say no to things, but I think I’m trying to get better at it — to find the balance, to make sure that we’re balancing life with our children at home, balancing work, and balancing the extracurricular fun things that we love to do. Our living children are 14 and 9, so they are in a very busy chapter of life right now.
For me personally, ambition is the reason that we are where we are today with our family’s organization — knowing we could do more, knowing that we could impact families in a more meaningful way. Ambition not only in professional life, but also with the kids, with our marriage, and always wanting to make sure that we were doing what we needed to do to be successful.
We went through some really difficult times. When we were thrown into the NICU, our daughter Claire was a pound two when she was born; Mary was a pound four. We didn’t know anyone who had experienced the NICU or what that life would look like. We lost our daughter Mary after 14 days with us. She died due to complications from her prematurity. Our daughter Claire at that time had dropped to 15 oz. She had a very difficult prognosis. They told us she had a high probability of not walking or talking if she lived.
We continued to live by the daily motto: one day at a time. Sometimes we took it one minute, one hour at a time. Our daughter Claire ended up beating the odds. She continued to fight. She spent 103 days in the NICU at Jefferson Abington Hospital before coming home with us. She’s now 14.
But it was that experience where we knew we had to do more for others who were going through that, because we felt very alone during the NICU journey. Family members and friends didn’t understand what we were going through. It was connections that we made in the NICU that really helped to change our journey. We thought there was an opportunity to do more of that for families.
That’s where that ambition piece comes in — to say, okay, we can do more. We did some work with the March of Dimes right out of the NICU. We weren’t ready to start something. A couple of years later, my best friend from Penn State called and said, “Get on Facebook. We started your fundraiser page to raise the money for your 501(c)(3). I’m tired of hearing you talk about it. Let’s get this thing going.” We raised the money. Our official Founders Day is May 8, and we launched Today Is a Good Day officially on May 8, 2014.
What role has community played in your journey?
Community plays a role in every chapter of our lives. My Penn State community made me who I am today. The community in Lancaster, working at the Heritage Center, and all the cheerleaders who were there along the way helped me to my next chapter in moving to Philadelphia for the first time and starting a new life here.
Community for us in the NICU helped us get through each day. I’ll share two quick stories. One week into our NICU stay, a mom had come in with her former 23-weeker. He was three at the time that she brought him in. The nurse asked us to meet with her and her son. We went and met Sam. I still remember the seat he was in at the Conference Center at Abington. He was sitting there playing on his mom’s iPhone. That gave us so much hope and inspiration. We had just heard the news about Claire’s prognosis. Mary was still fighting. We didn’t know that she would pass away about a week later.
Meeting Sam and Anne Marie was an opportunity for us to become part of this NICU community and see someone who was successful — who made it to the other side.
The other community that we built with our friends John and Rachel who had welcomed twins at 24 weeks and two days. They were in the same area as us because our girls were so premature. They were there the day that Mary passed away, and they knew that she had passed. We didn’t know them at the time. We saw the day that their daughter Jenna passed away about a week and a half after Mary had died.
Our surviving twins ended up being in the same pod. We became friends with one another. Our girls graduated a day apart. We went to dinner together at least once or twice a week during shift change. Such a support — people that we never would have met in our entire lives. Our girls are soul sisters for life.
That experience, that community that we built in the NICU, the community of the nurses and doctors (who we’re still friends with), helped us get through those three and a half months in the NICU before we could take Claire home. We always joke they had to kick us out.
When we look ahead to Today Is a Good Day, our mission is to provide hope and build community through personal and financial support for families who experience the NICU. For us, it is all about the community around you.
How do you define success?
Success is a feeling that you have. Personally, in our family life, success is wanting our children to be the best that they can be — to strive for excellence in everything they do. I often say I feel successful because our kids can have conversations with adults, be social, communicate well, and carry on great conversations with any age group. That, for me, is success. They’re doing well. They’re doing activities that they love, and we’ve been able to provide those opportunities for them.
The idea of success in Today Is a Good Day professionally, I feel success when I see those mission moments we receive from families: “This is the impact that you had on us.” Because we didn’t know that we needed your services, or that rental assistance that the NICU family advocate got for us saved us for another month because we had lost income being in the NICU every day with our baby.
Success to me is hearing those mission moments of what the organization and our team have been able to do for the families we’re trying to serve every day.
Whenever people ask me, “How many kids do you have?” my usual response is: we have four children — two here with us, two keeping watch from above.
We welcomed our twin girls. We welcomed Martha Rose 4 ½ years later — she’s 9 now. In 2018, when Martha Rose was three, we found out we were expecting again — a son. He was diagnosed with a chromosomal abnormality, trisomy 18, at 14 weeks gestation, which was really devastating news for us. We knew based on his diagnosis that he would not be with us after he was born, if he made it to live birth.
I carried him until 34 weeks. We created a birth plan for him with the team at Abington Hospital. Going through trisomy 18 and carrying William was probably one of the hardest times of my life. It is really hard carrying the child that you know is going to pass away after he’s born. People would say, “Oh, you’re expecting,” and that’s hard because it’s not going to be a happy ending of taking a child home.
But the community that I found through an organization — the Trisomy 18 Foundation — and this is what we say to families too: research your resources that are out there. We didn’t know if William would pass away in utero or if we would have any time with him. We didn’t know if he’d be born still. What could each of those scenarios look like? How do we prepare our daughters for him arriving, knowing he is going to look different?
There was a group on Facebook where people would ask questions: “What memory making did you do?” “How did you handle this?” “What did you do here?” It was such a great resource. Leading up to William’s birth — I ended up delivering him a little prematurely, just based on what his ultrasounds were looking like — we were able to do canvases with the girls where we all put our footprints on. We did canvases with handprints. The team at the hospital did a little plaster cast for my husband to hold William and get his feet.
We did all this memory making. The girls got to be there, and our family got to hold him, love him, and sing happy birthday to him. That community that we had, what I would say is: you just never know where you’re going to find the community that you need at the moment and how important it is to really look up those resources. I would have had no idea about the Trisomy 18 Foundation, and they were such a good resource for our family at the time.
What are the habits you have that allow you to reach your definition of success?
First, we try to be grateful for all things. Even after Mary passed away and we had gone through the NICU and everything, we tried really hard to be grateful for all things and believe there’s a path for our lives. It’s hard. The girls, when we talk with them, say, “Well, this isn’t fair. Why did this happen to us?” They’ve had to say goodbye to two siblings — something a lot of other kids don’t have to do.
For us personally, we have a strong foundation in faith that has helped us as a family. We say, this is our path that’s been chosen for us. Gratitude is one of the things that we always try to bring to the forefront in our family.
We have a journal that we keep on the dinner table in the kitchen. When we’re eating dinner together, we open it and go around the table listing a few things we’re grateful for. We’re now in our second or third journal. We don’t do it as often right now but we do keep it there and try to get in a couple of days a week of just writing what we’re grateful for.
Also, I’m trying to focus on more self-care. I’m trying to play tennis more often. Also, the idea of mindfulness. I took that eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction course through Penn years ago. I also love just sitting and watching some television and movies.
What do you think keeps women from taking opportunities that might be offered to them, and how do we help them develop that confidence to step into what others see in them?
What helps women gain more confidence goes back to community. When I look at how we have built Today Is a Good Day, it’s the community around us who has gotten us to where we are today. We started at one hospital. We’re now serving families at 23 hospitals and organizational partners. It was a team effort. It’s the NICU families, the board members, the people who have no connection to the NICU but believe in this mission, who have helped us and pushed us to say, “Let’s do more.” It’s my best friend who said, “Let’s get this thing started. I’m tired of hearing you talk about it.”
I do think what holds you back is fear and the uncertainty — the unknowns of what it could look like. That held us back from starting an organization. We were doing things with other groups and didn’t have the time or capacity. I needed that push from someone who believed in me so much, who wanted to be involved, who wrote our first strategic plan for three years, and said, “Let’s do this. We can do this.”
What is the legacy that you want to leave with all the work that you’re doing?
I want my legacy to be instilling in our kids how important it is to give back and how making a difference for other people is a very important part of life. Whether it’s finding something you’re passionate about and making sure you’re giving back to that mission.
My husband and I spoke at our 8th grader’s career day, and I said, “Does anybody volunteer now? Does anybody give back now?” I’m taking three of Claire’s girlfriends with us to host a volunteer event at the Girl Scouts convention coming up. We’re doing a table with NICU bedside signs.
Instilling that idea now of giving back and how important it is — we got that at Penn State Dance Marathon, raising money for kids with cancer in the Four Diamonds Fund, dancing our senior year. Those experiences really helped shape how important it is to give back to others.
Even being on Penn State Alumni Council and helping connect the Penn State community. Instilling that in our kids and helping in my personal space of the NICU — helping families know that they are not alone going through that experience.
Someday, maybe there won’t be a need for an organization like ours, which would be the hope. Right now, there is — and there’s a big need. Figuring out how we continue to support these families in the best way possible is, I would say, one of the most important things to me.
People often ask why we named the organization Today Is a Good Day. Early on, when the girls were born, we had a lot of bad days, difficult moments, and challenging decisions to make. We kept a daily journal. We talk to parents a lot about writing and the importance of writing down the notes from the doctors’ reports — all of that. Anytime the doctors and nurses would say, “Today is a good day for Claire” or, early on, “Today is a good day for Mary,” we always rejoiced and wrote that at the top of our page in the journal.
We decided to name the organization Today Is a Good Day to remind parents to celebrate the good moments — good milestones — no matter how big or small, to celebrate the good moments they have with their babies.
Going through the NICU, coming up with Today Is a Good Day — we have lots of opportunities to get involved. We have various programs that we offer, with care packages, Navigate the NICU sessions, work with hospitals, committees, board opportunities. We have a lot of volunteer opportunities. You can reach out to us and find more information at todayisagoodday.org.
Martha Sharkey is the Founder & CEO of Today is a Good Day, a non-profit providing personal and financial support for families who experience the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Martha and her husband, Paul, founded Today is a Good Day in honor of their daughter, Claire, and in memory of their daughter, Mary. Following their extended stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), the Sharkeys recognized a gap in care for parents and families navigating the NICU journey. They founded Today is a Good Day to fill that gap to support families. Martha is passionate about helping communities and people grow and persevere, especially during challenging times. She has led the effort to advance the mission of Today is a Good Day expanding its reach to 24 hospitals and organizational partners in seven states over the past 10 years.
