The birth of my third baby

The birth of my third actually happened in between those of my two sons. It was a lot less painful physically, although it did take a lot longer. It was still created by me and my husband, but we also delivered it ourselves. It was, of course, the birth of Who Loves Me?.

When our first son was born, the grandparents (on both sides) would visit frequently, they would never leave it longer than a couple of weeks in between visits. Nevertheless this was long enough apart for our son to completely forget them (apparently babies of three months old can only hold your face in their memory for 24 hours) and, as a shy baby, he wouldn’t want to cuddle them straight away and would often cry if he was taken away from mummy. He would get used to them during the course of the visit and be smiling like a very smiley thing on a particularly smiley day by the time they left, but the next time they came we’d be back to square one – refusing cuddles and looking at them as if they were strangers. Obviously all very upsetting for the grandparents who just wanted a big snuggle with their baby grandson.

[Enter Who Loves Me? stage right]

We made some cards for him – they were exceptionally basic compared to the ones we now make, but the prototype nonetheless – with photos of each of the family on each card and a little typed caption underneath with the name of the person and “loves me” (e.g. “Grandma loves me” or “Granny loves me” or “Uncle Simon loves me” etc) and we would show him the cards in between visits, looking at each card with him and saying the name of the person. The difference was honestly incredible. He would recognise granny / granddad / grandma as soon as they arrived!  They would be treated to a big smile when they walked through the door and he would reach out for cuddles for them. Well, you can imagine how pleased the grandparents were!!

We used our own cards for a while before we began thinking that these would also be really beneficial to other families. After all, not many babies see their grandparents every 24 hours! I took our cards to my NCT friends who had babies the same age and asked them what they thought. Was it a viable concept?  Would they buy a pack? How much would they pay for them? (In recent interviews I’ve done, this has been called my ‘ready-made focus group’ – a professional way of saying I asked my friends what they thought over a pizza!)

I got my friend Lisa, a graphic designer, on board who beautifully brought our vision to life by creating the artwork for the borders of the cards. My dad (an accountant) guided us through the financial administration of setting up a business, our friend Josh (a marketing guru) gave us a marketing workshop over a long dinner and his wife Gemma (a lawyer) helped us with the terms and conditions on our website. Sadly we didn’t know any web designers or trade mark lawyers (we know plenty now!) but we found some and got them all involved too. 

After what felt like forever we finally ‘gave birth’ in June 2010 – when I was heavily pregnant with baby number two. Two births within a few months of each other - now that takes some doing!

                                                    Dom making the first pack of cards!

I’ve never written down this “birth” story previously, so thanks to Tara Cain and The Gallery  for prompting me.