Designing woman balances business and triplets

Mary Beth Stevenson
Carlisle
Mother of Caroline, Catherine, and Douglas, all 6
Designs of Distinction
Custom-designed window treatments, bedding, and pillows

Mary Beth Stevenson always assumed she would remain a full-time professional even after having children. Doug, her husband-to-be then, on the other hand, didn't like the idea of putting their future children in day care. As they discussed their expectations before getting married, it seemed like an irresolvable conflict -- until Doug suggested she start an at-home business.

"Doug's idea was for me to get the business up and running before we even had children, so that I'd be well established once we did," said Stevenson, a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

As fate would have it, her business, Designs of Distinction, caught on quickly, but the plans to start a family took much longer. By 2000, Stevenson had been in business for three years and had a full roster of clients for her high-end, custom-designed bedspreads, pillows, and window treatments.

And then she found out that babies were on the way at last: three of them.

"The morning after I discovered I was pregnant with triplets, I called my mother in tears," she said. "I cried, 'I'll never be able to work again! I'll never be able to do anything again except take care of children!' "

In fact, Stevenson did work right up to the day before Douglas, Catherine, and Caroline were born, and resumed after giving herself a six-week maternity leave. Now, six years later, she is busier than ever, going on-site with clients to plan, sketch, and measure, and then doing the sewing in her home-based studio. Stevenson estimates that she completes about 100 projects a year -- "some as small as one throw pillow, others as large as window treatments for an entire home."

"The children have always understood that if I'm in my studio with the door shut, I'm working," she said. "That means they go to Doug or the baby sitter if they need something. When they were little, I would often work late into the night after they went to bed. I'd stay up until 11 p.m. Or sometimes more like 3 a.m. Now that they're in school, I work mostly in the morning."

And, to this day, Stevenson says she is delighted with her husband's suggestion 10 years ago that she start her own business.

"Having triplets threw us into parenthood so quickly, and even though I love every minute of it, it's nice that there are days I get to be a 'big person' and meet with clients and talk about something not child-related," she said. "At the same time, I'm available to do things during the day with my children. I can volunteer in their classrooms and do after-school activities with them. For all of us, this is a perfect solution."