Sleep deprived? Need someone to fix a meal? Do the laundry? Go shopping? Hold your baby while you take a bath? Listen?

A volunteer from Many Mothers, a 15-year-old nonprofit, is there to help.

About 15 families of newborns in Santa Fe are receiving these free services. Most of the volunteers are moms themselves, some are grandmothers, and they all love babies.

Many Mothers will come to any home with a new baby two days a week for the first month for two-hour visits. During the second and third months, the volunteers visit one day a week. For twin households, the visits last six months, and there are two volunteers. Joyce and Barton Bond, who have triplets, are getting three volunteers for nine months.

"We consider ourselves the modern day version of the extended family," said program director Julie Peet.

Many Mothers was founded by Anne McCormick, who died in March. "It's just about having a volunteer show up and say, 'I'm 100 percent here for you," she said when she was chosen by The New Mexican as one of the Ten Who Made a Difference in 2006.

Over the years, many new moms have said the help literally saved their lives.

Quite a bit of intuition is involved in choosing volunteers according to Peet. Many Mothers wants to know Is this person able to be a friend? Able to listen? Able to be nonjudgmental, to show up and be supportive, not to teach the mom anything in particular?

Currently there are about 20 volunteers visiting families, and the organization has about 30 active members.

More and more of the first-time moms are 40 or over, including Ellen Frankel. The 40-year-old  had her first child, Daniela, in February after years of trying and two miscarriages.

"It's a great organization, a great idea," said Frankel. "Once the baby is born, you really need someone to help out. Unless you have friends or family in the area, you don't have that," she said.

It's only a myth that older mothers are "more mature and have it more together. It's just as rough for me as for a 23-year-old," she said.

Julia Powell, a nurse, turned 40 a month after the birth of her twins, Connor and Carrye. "In the reproductive world that's elderly," she said.

Powell, and her husband, Mark Bramble, a firefighter/EMT, tried for four years to have kids before turning to assisted reproductive technology. They succeeded the first time around.

When the twins were 4 months old, Powell went back to work part time, and her husband stayed home to care for the babies. Volunteers with Many Mothers are helping out. But that's not enough, Powell said, and she and her husband are planning to move to San Diego where Julia's sister and Mark's mother have promised to baby-sit.

After the twins were born, Powell said she called all the day care facilities listed in the phone book. The best option was at the Santa Fe Community College, but the cost — $920 per child per month — was prohibitive.

Bridget Wolf has an 11-year-old daughter from her first marriage, but she and her husband, Dixon Wolf, wanted a child together. Bridget got pregnant the month before she turned 41, then learned she was having twins, which run in her family. She said she felt "special and excited," but Dixon, 54, was shocked. "Oh my gosh, I'm going to have to work until I'm 70," was his reaction, according to his wife.

After 20 weeks, Bridget quit her sales job at Packards on the Plaza and spent weeks in the hospital in Albuquerque. Patrick (3.6 pounds) and Lily (4.1 pounds) were born at 33 weeks. The babies stayed in the hospital for a month before they were big enough to come home.

Although caring for two newborns is exhausting, Bridget said she doesn't feel as if she's starting her parenting days over again. "It's not going backward. It's going forward. This is a new event, not something I ever did," she said.

She spends her days caring for the children, sometimes propping them both on a lime green pillow that fits around her waist and feeding them simultaneously. She learned about Many Mothers from her pediatrician. Volunteer Joy Lanun comes every week, sometimes with homemade meals. "What I mostly do (then) is sleep," she said. "I think they're essential for anyone with a newborn," she added.