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Guest Heather of Alpine Baby Co: Juggling an online business, family farm & extreme pregnancy illness {Episode 72}
86 Plays5 years ago
In this episode, Bonnie & Audrey visit with Heather of Alpine Baby Company. She shares the ins and outs of running her business including what parts she controls and what parts she outsources. We also chat about her amazing family farm and building their house while living in a tiny barn and how she manages it all. And then she shares her heart about why she's willing to endure hypermesis gravidarum, extreme pregnancy sickness.
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Transcript
Introduction and Mission
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to episode 72 of Outnumbered the Podcast. We are delighted and a little bit awestruck to have gotten the chance to interview Heather of Alpine Baby Company. In this episode, we chat with her about so many topics, running an online business, having a large family in a small house, and a myriad of animals, and so many other topics you are going to love this episode.
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. We're experienced moms to a combined total of 18 children. Our mission is to help overwhelmed parents find peace in parenting and humor in the chaos. Come join us as we attempt uninterrupted conversation about parenting with joy and intention.
00:00:58
Speaker
We're so glad to have with us Heather of Alpine Baby Company.
Business and Family Life
00:01:02
Speaker
She sews up the most incredible and cute baby leggings and clothes. And we're going to talk to her about a whole bunch of stuff besides just baby clothes. So we're delighted to have you here with us today, Heather. Welcome.
00:01:14
Speaker
Thank you. I'm happy to be here. So we usually start our episodes off with a little bit of a humor segment because we all know that motherhood is hilarious. If you could keep your sense of humor, right? Um, so we, we wanted to ask if you have, um, some, a funny mom moment you'd like to share with us or a funny thing your kid said, et cetera. Well, I have a lot of them, but probably the one that sticks out the most is when my, I went to pick up my kids from school one day and
00:01:43
Speaker
They were also in elementary school. So I had, I think, I just had the four kids in the car with me and I picked them all up and were taken off driving and I had been on my phone. I don't remember. It must have been a somewhat important phone call. I don't remember who I was even talking to, but my kids had been kind of trying to interrupt me and they were saying things and I was just like,
00:02:06
Speaker
you know how you're on the phone you're like shushing them before we get home and i'm starting to get snacks and stuff and i'm like where's sage and i do my oldest daughter and i'm like well mom you left her at school and i'm like what you never you never picked her up you drove away
00:02:25
Speaker
I'm like, well, why don't you guys tell me? And I'm like, well, because you kept shushing us because you were on the phone. And we don't want to interrupt you and get you upset. And I'm like, oh my goodness, guys, if I'm leaving a kid at school, you can interrupt me and be loud and yell. But here they were being so polite because they didn't want to get in trouble by interrupting me on the phone. And I just drove away. And I left her, it was a long time. And like she was, I think she was in third or fourth grade.
00:02:54
Speaker
to go back to the school and she's on the playground just sobbing her little eyes out, you know? And it wasn't funny at the time, of course, I felt horrible, but later we really laughed about it. And I'm like, you guys can interrupt me on the phone. Like there's certain things that you can interrupt me for. And they waited until I got home and finished my phone call and everything. Like they never said, you know, by the way, mom, Sage was at school. You left her and forgot about her. Those are some really obedient kids.
00:03:24
Speaker
I know, I felt so bad. I'm like, what have I done to put this fear into them that they are that afraid to interrupt me? Well, I would like to know because I'd like to take some of that fear and use it for my own good. Oh, I know. So yeah, I don't know. So we might not get interrupted today, you know? Definitely, we need some of that then. It's still in our kids because we always get interrupted.
00:03:51
Speaker
But yeah, I've relaxed a little bit since then, I guess. Okay, so Sage is your oldest. Tell us a little bit about you and your family.
Living in Montana
00:04:02
Speaker
I married Ry almost 20 years ago now and we have five kids who live in Kalispell, Montana. He has his own construction company, Small Business. And then of course I have my sewing company.
00:04:18
Speaker
And yeah, we love the outdoors, love getting out into the mountains. We're building a house right now, so we're working on that. So what are the ages of your kids now? Sage, the oldest is 18. And then I have 16, 14, 10, and 5. And only one of those is a boy, right? Yeah, yep, the 10-year-old, Shay. He's the only boy. Oh, lucky kid.
00:04:46
Speaker
Yeah, he when he found out Sarah and the youngest was a girl, we have the funniest video because we did one of those little gender reveal things. I have the funniest video when he found out she was a girl, he cried and cried and cried like for a long time. Like he was broken hearted. Yeah, he's made peace with it now. Yeah.
00:05:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty tough. Okay, so I want to hear about your company out by Medico. So it's very successful from what we can tell Children's Clothing Shop. Can you tell us a little bit more about it? How you started? What it looks like now? Yeah, so I didn't start the company. It was started by Chelsea DeBay. And she about a year and a half into it, she
00:05:35
Speaker
started to get overwhelmed by orders and trying to keep up with sewing. So I just happened to see, I think it was her, an Instagram post where she had said, someone had said, oh, you're kind of waiting on my order. And she said, I'm backed up and I'm kind of looking for a seamstress to help me out. So I actually just reached out to her on Instagram. And I said, Hey, if you're looking for help sewing, you know, I love to sew, I have my own equipment. So
00:06:02
Speaker
Anyway, it started as a friendship and I was her seamstress for I think almost two years. And then she wanted to kind of move on and pursue other things. So it just kind of evolved that I took over the business and bought it from her. I just made my final payment last month. So I've now owned the business as long as she did. So it just kind of evolved. It just fell in my lap. It worked out. It was just kind of meant to be
00:06:29
Speaker
So, and it was just the right time. I like, I could have never done it when my kids were much smaller and younger. So it just worked out really well for us. Right. So are you the only seamstress still, or do you have helpers? Do you still sew? So I do all the sewing, but my girls all help me out with everything else. Oh, wow. That's amazing. Yeah. I'm just so fussy about it. It's hard for me, like,
00:06:55
Speaker
I don't know, to pass on the sewing to someone else. Like I've even started working with the girls on it and it's hard. I'm really fussy on the sewing and it takes a lot of experience, as you probably know, to become a good seamstress. And so I'm kind of working on training them, but right now the sewing is done by me. Wow, that's amazing.
00:07:16
Speaker
And it's really awesome sewing, too. I mean, you sent me a pair of leggings when our youngest baby was born. And I looked him over as a seamstress myself, just because I was curious. I think you have a commercial serger. Yeah, I do. And I looked him over, and they were impeccable. I mean, they were really good. Oh, well, thank you. That's good praise coming from you. And also super cute. I mean, so you do not do the designing of your fabric, though. You outsource that, right?
00:07:46
Speaker
So I do both. I have done some of the designing myself, but I don't enjoy it because it involves technology, which is, you know, I don't love technology. I don't love Adobe Photoshop. And so I have something in my mind and a picture of what I wanted.
00:08:05
Speaker
and I get on the computer and try and put it together and it just usually never quite turned out how I had in my mind. So then I started looking at and working with other designers and they are so much better at taking what I have in my mind and making it reality than I ever was. So finally I'm like, you know, I think I'm going to stick to sewing.
00:08:23
Speaker
and pay other people to design the fabric. And it's just a better use of my time. But I still dabble in it a little bit if I have free time. And do you design the shirts too? The vinyl that goes on the tees? Yeah, we do all the shirts. That's a lot easier. They're so cute though. Yeah, my daughters are kind of working on designing some. We have one of our tees that was designed by my second oldest daughter.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah. And I love, I love what you just said about, about the outsourcing thing. I think that that is a real lesson for all moms everywhere, right? Is that sometimes we beat our heads against the wall thinking, I just have to be good at everything or I just have to do this because that's what moms do. And yet that's a lesson we can learn, you know, from business as moms is if that's not something that you're good at or that you even enjoy, let someone else do it. It can be an older kid. It can be someone you hire, whatever. Why do we, we don't have to do everything. I love that thought.
00:09:17
Speaker
and they're both working on some more coming for summer.
00:09:25
Speaker
Yes, exactly. Because that's how I went into it. I was like, all right, I'm going to do everything. And, you know, I'm going to be the designer and be the shipper and be the sewer and everything else. And I got a little overwhelmed. In fact, I got to a point where I told my husband, like, I just don't think I can do this. Like, I can't be everything to everyone and still do this business. And that's when finally I was like, OK, you know, what is the best use of your time? And that's when I decided sewing. That's the one thing I haven't been able to
00:09:54
Speaker
you know, find someone else that can do as good as me. But everything else, like I have my kids do the shipping, they do the shirts, they do the heat pressing, you know, I have designers that do the designing of the fabric. And so yeah, that's exactly right. And then it became so much more manageable and less stressful for me. Okay. That's, that's really awesome to hear that your whole family gets involved. I just, I just love that.
00:10:19
Speaker
So we want you to tell us what's the best part of running your online retail business and then what's the hardest part?
Work-Life Balance
00:10:27
Speaker
So hands down the best part for me is being able to work from home and being able to be here with my family, with my kids. And I'm also by nature just a homebody and an introvert. Like when I have had to go work out in a job course, I didn't love it.
00:10:42
Speaker
And so it's really suited to my personality and what I love. I love sewing. I love fabrics. You know, so I'm doing what I love in the setting that I love. So that is by far the plus. I think it would be technology. It's always the technology. I'm just, I struggle with even with my website and my
00:11:08
Speaker
My shipping, all that stuff is done online and I just struggle with technology. I always have and I think I probably always will. I keep hoping one of my kids will develop an interest in computers and technology, but my only hope is my boy, my 10-year-old, he's starting to show some interest in it. I'm like, okay, but my girls, my older girls, they're as bad as me.
00:11:34
Speaker
I think both Bonnie and I can relate to loving being able to stay at home and the part about working with fabric and sewing. I think that's just really awesome. But we can both relate to that. And I know that we talked about what we actually talk about in a lot of our episodes about things that like listening to your intuition on so you wanted to stay home with your kids and you found something that could support that.
00:11:57
Speaker
And that's just like, I don't know. We just want to stand up and applaud when we hear somebody say that because you're proving that it can be done. It's possible and it can be done. And that's really awesome. Yeah. Well, thank you. It was really the only option for me. Like I've done so many day home business ventures from soap to selling quilts. I used to make quilts and sell them and
00:12:21
Speaker
This is kind of the one that stuck and was actually successful and took off for me. So it worked out really well for me. But if you ever do get back into soap, let me know because I loved your goat milk. So that was awesome. We just got moved into our house and I kind of just put it on pause until we moved into our house and had more space and room. But I will get back into that. Not really so much as a business, but it's just kind of fun.
00:12:51
Speaker
You know, I think Audrey and I talked in our episode on working moms a little bit about this, about how so many of us want something in addition to motherhood, something more fulfilling, something to help out with finances or just to share your talents with the world. And sometimes the right choice is to leave the home and do something outside of it. And usually you know if that's the case.
00:13:11
Speaker
And if it's not, usually you know that too, right? And I think so many of us have thought, yes, I want something extra, but I don't want to leave my kids for it. Or some people say they do, but I think the essential thing is to stay true to that, right? And not try to fight it. If you really don't feel good about leaving your kids, find something else to do, right? Or if you really, really need a break from them, that's okay. There's no reason to feel guilty about that. So I love that you kept going to find something that worked for you at home. Yeah, I think we all have our own intuition on what, how we are as a mother. And for me, like,
00:13:41
Speaker
I remember when I was pregnant, my first one, I'm like, Oh, you know, I have to find childcare. And I was lining up childcare so I could go back to work and all these plans that I had. And then like the second she was going, I'll just put out the window. Like, Oh, well, nevermind. I'm not going back to work. I'm not leaving her. But this doesn't mean that I'm ever judging anyone else who does. That was just my own preference and what I wanted. And I've, I've held true to that even
00:14:10
Speaker
When there's been some hard times and we've had to make some sacrifices, I'm like, you know, I'd rather have one vehicle and be able to stay home with my child, you know, or
00:14:19
Speaker
not be able to do trips and be able to stay home. So for me, it was just worth it, but it looks different for everyone, you know? Yeah. And sometimes it even looks different in different phases of life, right? Sometimes you know that the place you need to be is at home and then kids get bigger and you're like, no, now it's time for me to further my career and I'm going to go out and do something else. So yeah, to just be really, that intuition. I love that.
00:14:43
Speaker
So I wanna hear a little bit more about your house building situation. Like I'm obsessed with that idea about building house, but that you currently live in a tiny space. So tell us about that, how you guys survived that. So we just moved into the big house. So we are not living in there, which we think is really a blessing in disguise right now when we're not able to believe. We keep saying, okay, well, at least we're not in the pole barn. So how it happened is, so we had bought probably about 10 years ago, a really, really old home.
00:15:11
Speaker
and then fixed it up, put a bunch of work into it. And we had outgrown it, especially with my business. So we needed somewhere that we could expand. So we sold it and we had some property and we built a pole barn, which is like a basically a metal shop. A lot of people don't know what a pole barn is, but kind of a metal shop that's pole framed. And most of it was my husband's shop.
00:15:35
Speaker
Um, woodworking shop. And then on the side, we just did a living space that was about 600 to 700 square feet. And so we moved into that where we built our house on the same property and we loved it. We thought we were going to like just endure it and get through it. And, you know, I had my sewing studio in there. We had all four kids. We didn't have a bedroom, no doors, except for the bathroom. And we loved it.
00:16:00
Speaker
Like, my husband kept trying to convince us that we didn't even need to build. We could just live there forever. And I'm like, we need closets. That was our only problem is we just didn't have any closets. And so now we just moved into the big house and we love it too. And I think it just shows that it doesn't really matter where you live, but who you're with. And home is really just, you know, being together. But don't get me wrong, we're loving this. And I love my new sewing studio and
00:16:27
Speaker
It's very, very nice. But we, we love that year in our little apartment and in that pole barn. And it was great. I actually highly recommend it to everybody. Yeah. What a beautiful sentiment that it just matters. You know, just the people you're with matter. And I think a lot of us, that's something that we're, we're trying to understand right now as we're all cooped up inside with our families is that like, are my relationships where I want them to be? Because this is truly what matters. And sometimes it can be easy to forget that when we're
00:16:54
Speaker
go, go, go to school and to work and to here and there and the extracurriculars. But when it comes down to the basics of, oh, now I'm here with my family, second side, do we treat each other the way we should? Do we enjoy each other the way we should? And I just love that sentiment. What a great time to really focus on the essential.
00:17:11
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And I think it's, it's a good lesson too. And that, you know, for me, I was at kind of a point where, you know, that old house, we'd outgrown it. There was so many, you know, it just constantly needed work. And I'm like, well, I think I will just be happier if we can get a new house and one that we can build together and it's bigger and it has this and it has that and kind of that, you know, American dream. And like I said, it's great and we love it, but we were just as happy in that old down house.
00:17:38
Speaker
as we are in this one. I mean, I don't want to sound unappreciative. I appreciate it so much. But, you know, my point is I think you can be happy no matter what situation you're living in, if you just look at what you have around you, which is your people.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's really awesome. Thank you for sharing that point of view. So you have your sewing business and you guys just finished building a house or you, I don't know if it's finished, you moved in. We're not quite done. We're just kind of finishing it as we do, isn't it? Yeah. So then you have a farm with lots of animals. I know you have
00:18:19
Speaker
fun, fun dairy goats. And you post about them on your Alpine baby co Instagram on the stories. It's so cute. I love to watch your little baby goats and you have beautiful flower gardens in the summers. And then you talked about soap making. So talk to us about how you juggle everything and make it work. Oh boy. Um,
00:18:40
Speaker
You know, I think ultimately we all just find time for what we love because I have people say that, you know, how do you guys find time for all this? And how do you do all this? And I don't know. I don't have an answer, but I just think we.
00:18:54
Speaker
Ultimately, we find time for what we love some people that means coming home turning on the TV and watching sports for a couple hours some people it's coming home and taking a long bath or relaxing to me relaxing is going out and working in my garden or taking care of the goats and doing chores and Those are the things that I love. We don't have TV. I don't have Facebook stuff like that. So it's just kind of a
00:19:19
Speaker
I don't know. I guess it just prioritizes what is important to us, which is being outside, you know, being, having fresh milk to drink, just what's important to us. And it, I think that looks different again for everyone. Everyone has what they put their downtime into. And for me, that's what it is because I love it. I grew up on a farm.
00:19:42
Speaker
Yeah. And it just, I don't know, it kind of takes me back to my childhood. It's the childhood I want for my kids. Although we laugh because we have all these baby goats, this whole huge place, all this stuff to do. And our kids are still like, mom, what do we do? We're bored. And I'm like, oh, I just don't think it matters what kids have. They're still going to say that. That's true. That's just a kid thing. I think something designed into kids to make them torture us, right? I'm bored.
00:20:14
Speaker
What do you mean you're bored? We have like, there is so much here to do. And yeah, it's a kid thing. I loved, I was just smiling and nodding away when you said we make time for the things we love because I think Audrey and I have talked about this quite a few times. I can honestly say I have never stayed up till midnight in order to wash my dishes. That's just not a priority for me.
00:20:38
Speaker
Some people it is and I really admire that, but I have stayed up way late and woken up really early and spent hours and hours sewing and building a business and designing and doing these things that I'm so passionate about because it fills me up, right? And so I think that for moms who are looking for something that gives them that sort of passion, if it's not something that it's worth like losing sleep over or losing, you know,
00:21:01
Speaker
having a messy house for whatever, then it's probably not the right thing, right? I have a lot of people ask me about that. How do I find happiness if I'm stuck at home with diapers and et cetera. And I say, you just have to find the thing that lights you on fire. And I love that you said that you've obviously found quite a few things that give you that passion. I love that.
00:21:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's very important for everyone to find that and I laugh because like I have some friends who, you know, they are always saying that to me and I'm like, you guys spend like two hours at the gym. I don't, I would have, I can myself hardly take a walk every day. Like, I love that. That's their passion.
00:21:37
Speaker
You know, they love to work out and run and be active and stuff. So we just all have our different areas that we put our time and energy into. And I wish that I could put a lot more time and energy into working out like they do. Yeah, I think we all just spend time doing what we love. I like to what you said about wanting to raise your kids on a farm like you grew up on a farm and pass along some of those values and instill in them some of that work ethic too.
00:22:03
Speaker
I think that's the same reason that we have a lot of, oh, you know, farm animals and gardens and things on our property too, is that we're appreciating what our parents instilled in us and trying to pass that along, that work ethic and that appreciation of animals and all that along to the next generation. So I really like how you brought out that part too. Yeah, thank you.
00:22:27
Speaker
Okay, so for our final question, we just wanted to shift focus a
Pregnancy and Future Plans
00:22:30
Speaker
little bit. From what I understand, you suffer from some pretty intense sickness while you're pregnant. And I know this is such, such a hard thing and so many women struggle with this. We want to just get a little bit of behind the scenes on that. Can you explain a little bit about the psychology of wanting to continue to have babies when you suffer so much? I'm really curious. Yeah, that's also another question I get asked a lot. I think people think I'm crazy.
00:22:56
Speaker
Especially those that watch me go through it and see how it affects me. And then they're like, what? I thought I'm doing it again, but I don't know. I wish I had an easy answer, but it's worth it to me. That's what it comes down to. And I feel bad saying that because it doesn't mean that other moms that
00:23:20
Speaker
go through it and they're like, I'm never doing that again. And they don't, it doesn't mean that it wasn't worth it for them. So it's hard for me to answer that without, you know what I mean? But it's for me, it was just worth it. And both Ryan and I love kids. And like we knew as soon as we got married that we wanted a lot of them. And we would actually probably have a lot more if it wasn't for my sickness.
00:23:45
Speaker
Like Ry will always say, when I'm getting ready to talk him into the next one, he's like, I have no problems having more babies and more children. Like that is not the issue ever. He goes, my only problem is watching you go through that again. And I think for me, I would get so sick, but it wasn't, the biggest problem for me is I was so sick the whole time. So like even with Saren, my last one on the day I had her,
00:24:14
Speaker
I was puking up buckets you know like for me it wasn't like oh I'm just sick the first trimester and then I feel great I was just sick the entire time you know like so so sick to the point where I was on IVs for nutrition in the hospital I would with my son I actually puked so much I tore a hole in my esophagus and I had to go like on a liquid diet and
00:24:38
Speaker
And it was just the whole time, like it would, it would get a little bit better, like in the second and third trimester, but I was still puking every day. And like with my second daughter, um, I puked so much so often that I actually, she ended up having intrauterine growth retardation and then I couldn't keep down liquids. So she had super low amniotic fluids.
00:25:03
Speaker
And then by the time I had her, my placenta was half dead. So it just affected everything. But I don't know. I just wanted more kids. And like I said, I'd probably have a lot more if it wasn't for that.
00:25:20
Speaker
I think that's a beautiful answer. Honestly, I think it's very difficult to ever, I mean, we should never take our own experiences and project them onto someone else, right? Like you're saying, like it makes you feel bad, like people who choose not to have children because they get very, very ill. That doesn't have anything to do with you. Everyone has their own decisions that they make the best ones for them and their family. But I think that that's such a beautiful, simple answer that it was just worth it to you.
00:25:45
Speaker
Mom's sacrifice, that's just what moms do. Whether we sacrifice before having our babies because it's hard to get pregnant or during pregnancy or during birth, there's a lot of sacrifice during birth, that's for sure. You know, sacrifice after, that's just what we do is we sacrifice things for our babies. And sometimes it looks like a physical sacrifice and sometimes it's a mental or an emotional one, but that's our life.
00:26:07
Speaker
And we love it. We think it's worth it. That's why we do this, right? But man, my heart goes out to you. Do you have any tips or thoughts that you can share with other women who experienced that because of that is such a unique and awful struggle to go through? Well, one thing that always encouraged me, I actually don't feel like I went through my pregnancies very well or very gracefully, especially with my last one, Sarah. And I was to the point where it just took me to a really dark place and
00:26:36
Speaker
it was mentally very, very challenging for me. But one thing that I just hung on to, and I thought, you know what, there is so, so many women everywhere who don't get this privilege of being pregnant and having a baby and, you know, with infertility or whatever they're looking at. There's so many women who don't, like I view having children as a privilege. Like I've been so lucky and blessed to be able to have them. So I would just kind of hang on to that. I'm like,
00:27:06
Speaker
It could be worse. You could be able to not be pregnant or have a child or a baby. And that helped me to just like put it in perspective for me, you know, and to just, I would just start thinking about, okay, I'm just going to get through today. Like it would, I would get so overwhelmed by like looking ahead. I had eight months more of cooking, you know, and it would just, that would just overwhelm me. So I would just start like fighting it off in chunks, you know, like, okay, I'm just going to get through today.
00:27:35
Speaker
and I'm going to try to get through today without like it was really hard on my older kids like by the time I had my fifth child my girls were a little bit older and it was so hard on them it really really affected them so then that kind of helped me too like okay this is just killing your kids to see you like this you have to try to like somehow get through this and try to put on a smile on your face every now and then and maybe leave the house and do something with them
00:28:03
Speaker
And so I kind of did it for them. But yeah, I don't know. It's hard. More than anything, they have my sympathy if people have it. Hypermencia, grab a tear on or whatever it's called.
00:28:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's horrible. Wow. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I can relate a little bit because I suffer a little bit from prenatal anxiety. And so I would do some of the same mental calming tricks or, you know, talks, tips to myself, like just get through this day, you know, don't think about how much time you have left and so on. So I can really appreciate you sharing that and just what, you know, what a beautiful thing you said when you looked at your daughters
00:28:43
Speaker
and your and your kids and said you wanted to make it not so unpleasant for them that like again here you're being so selfless to have a pregnancy that just is sickness all the time and then you're looking at your other kids and trying to make it
00:28:58
Speaker
a good experience for them too. That's wow. That's just amazing. Well, I might've traumatized them. I think they're all like, I am never getting pregnant. I have never seen this. I'm like, good, good, good. That's okay. You can think that for now. I might've traumatized them a little too much. I think they're like, well, whoa. And I try to explain to them too. I'm like, no, this isn't normal. But my mom had it too with her fourth.
00:29:22
Speaker
child, Holly, she was my little sister, she was really bad and she spent quite a bit of time in the hospital. And then she did the same thing. It was a couple years after she had Holly and she wanted another one. My dad's just like, no, like, no way. He's like, I am never ever letting you go through that again. So, you know, he just kind of puts a kibosh on that. And, and that's kind of where Ry is too. He's just like, we just can't do it because we would, like I said, we'd have more kids, but
00:29:51
Speaker
It was definitely a trial. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's so amazing. Well, and yeah, and, and chances are good that your girls will be just fine, but they know what the worst thing is to expect. And if it's anything better, they'll be so grateful. So just think about that. Worst case scenario. So a couple of years ago, um, we were pregnant and we found out it was twins and I had told my, my girls about it. And I remember telling them we were sitting at the cheesecake factory and
00:30:19
Speaker
Seattle and I was telling them about it and their eyes just, oh, that's so big. And I'm like, are you guys excited and happy? And, you know, I just thought they were going to be so overjoyed and I'm like, no, mom, you can't do that again. They were just so like, so I think that it was hard on them, but it was also, um, eventually they got really excited.
00:30:45
Speaker
And they were so excited about it. And then, you know, I think, you know, I, I miscarried them. And I think that also put it in perspective for me too, going through a miscarriage and having to deal with that and realizing there's someone in that deal with this all the time, you know, and can't hang on to a child and can't get pregnant.
Business Availability and Challenges
00:31:05
Speaker
And like, I'm so lucky having to be sick really is nothing.
00:31:08
Speaker
when you look at the big scheme of it, you know, and people who have to deal with miscarriages all the time. It's just heartbreaking. Wow. That's a beautiful message. Thank you so much for sharing that. I appreciate that. Yeah. We, we really appreciate you opening up your heart to us and, and your struggles and your victories and, and we really just love talking to you today.
00:31:30
Speaker
Oh, thank you. So tell our listeners where they can find you online and where they can put their hands on some of those gorgeous baby leggings. Um, just elpenbabyco.com. And we are in a couple of stores too, but they're all closed up. I feel so bad for them, but we also sell at the Montana scene throughout Montana and then Sprouts, which is a baby clothing store in Whitefish. But they can still find you online, right?
00:31:58
Speaker
Yep. Well, we will definitely link to Alpine Baby Co and your social media. And we just want to thank you again for talking with us today. It's been such a nice conversation. And we think our listeners are going to love hearing from you. Well, thank you. And thank you for letting me talk. I kind of tend to ramble. So hopefully I made sense. Thank you so much, Heather.
00:32:21
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in. Did you know you can help the podcast in several ways? First up, we're on Patreon, and there are three different levels to support us there. Just head to patreon.com slash outnumbered. Next up, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a written review on iTunes. It helps other parents find the podcast and receive the help you're enjoying. And finally, you can follow us on Instagram at Outnumbered the Podcast. We're always having fun over there too.
00:32:47
Speaker
As usual, if you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at outnumberthepodcastatgmail.com. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week. I'm having a really hard time finding elastic. I'm trying to switch over to shorts for summer that don't have elastic, but I finally found some like in the UK.
00:33:11
Speaker
but it was so much in shipping and it was going to take so long. So I thought, well, I'm just going to wait until there's not an elastic shortage and then I'll go back to legging. So I'm kind of taking a break from the leggings right now until I can source some more elastic. Yeah. That's the elastic shortage because everyone is sewing and making masks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, and I, I was kind of surprised, but why is like waistband elastic?
00:33:40
Speaker
you know, out of stock. But then I discovered based on my own sewing, trying to make mass that you can cut it like lengthwise and make it work. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a little tip. Yeah. Oh, I should be telling people that and then they're gonna keep buying all the weight.