Let’s Start at the Very Beginning…

So, I thought a good place to begin might be…well…the
beginning. 

November, 2006.  We
had a lovely 2.5 year old daughter and were expecting a little boy.  Besides the fact that I was excited to have
one of each, I was happily anticipating getting to re-do the whole ‘baby
thing’. 

Our daughter had been a bit of a fussy baby, mostly in the
evenings.  I guess you could say she was
mildly colicky.  But I had mostly
convinced myself that her colic had been the result of my naivety and
inexperience as a parent.  THIS TIME,
this time would be different.  And much
easier.  And my baby would be EASY.

He would sleep anywhere, he would be a champ at
breastfeeding, and he would look up at me adoringly while cooing and smiling
(never mind that newborns don’t smile, daydreams don’t have to follow the
rules).

And then he was born. 
He screamed from the moment he was born.  He screamed while I tried to feed him, he screamed when he should
have been sleeping, and he screamed while we held him.

For weeks he screamed and cried, and not just during those ‘colicky’
hours, either.  My husband and I
searched for information on the Web but kept finding articles about colic…this
wasn’t colic!  Our baby seemed like he
wished he hadn’t been born. 

Finally, with the help of our midwives, doctor, and pediatrician,
we discovered he was sensitive to dairy. 
By cutting dairy out of my diet entirely, he was finally able to have
some relatively calm moments.  He was
still a highly sensitive, ‘passionate’ baby who loves to exercise his little
lungs, but at least he wasn’t crying all the time.

Fast forward 5 months.

My parents have been great examples to me of taking
something hard, and making something positive come out of it. 

So, equipped with my vast non-existent knowledge
of HTML, graphic design, and general ‘starting and running a website’ know-how,
I figured it was a natural leap to start a site that would be THE site for
parents of fussy, colicky, and ‘high-needs’ babies.

I had no intention of turning Fussy Baby into a
business.  This was simply

a)     
An outlet for me to work through the first months of Sammy’s
life, and

b)     
A way to help other parents going through the same thing.

But as I watched the stats for the site each month, I saw
the number of visitors increasing in leaps and bounds.  This was a nice confirmation that my
hundreds (thousands?!) of hours spent working on the site were worth it.

So after lots of thinking I finally resolved to my conscience that yes, I could run a for-profit website, and still be a good person, and not be betraying my visitors (yes, this has been my main struggle, I’m not kidding). 

Now here I am, one year later, having SO much fun, running my website, off gallivanting with any and all mom entrepreneurs I can find (we’re a unique breed), all while getting ready to launch another new business (more to come, stay tuned!).