Excerpts from New Mothers Journal: 2007-2009

July 2007:
It started before I even left the hospital. From the moment my son was born my ability to recall the simplest information was gone.

It took me aback really. I’d heard about mommy brain but this was ridiculous. A week ago I was managing hundreds of relationships and the top sales person in a fortune 500 company.

I thought it would get better when I got home and I was in my own surroundings. The log book I was trying to use to keep track of the feeding time the doctor had suggested I monitor was always 2 floors away, which might as well have been 200 miles away in my sleep deprived state. I felt like a pacifier too but really couldn’t remember whether it had been 15 minutes or 2 hours since his last feeding so the easiest thing to do was simply feed him again.

Fast forward 4 months and I am back to work. Somehow I am always running late. Traffic, one more client. As I am rushing in my babysitter is rushing out and I am left wondering why exactly the baby has started crying. Has he eaten recently? How much? Enough? Is he tired? Did he take good naps today? Should I put him down or let him stay up a bit? The questions swirl around in my head. Without any information it is hard to know what course of action to take to calm your little baby’s cries. Once teething started it just complicated things more as I never knew when he had last been medicated. We would all TRY to write these things down, but apparently it takes a much more organized group of people than us to do this consistently. I keep wondering are WE the ONLY ones???

to be continued.....

Kelly Ripa/TLC Show audition - part 5

continued from Monday.......

Three weeks later we received an email from a casting producer at Milojo Productions. He said that he was looking at our application and had questions about where we were in the process. What did we need help with? What obstacles were we facing while trying to bring the product to market? We were still in the running! We answered his questions and now will sit back to wait out the remaining weeks.

So far the process has been an exciting adventure. We have met intriguing women who all share a common thread: To realize their dreams no matter what the cost and effort involved. I feel we have joined this elite group who not only dream but dare to risk it all for the possibility of holding that concrete, finite thing in our hands and showing it to the entire world in the hopes it will make someone’s life better. May we all persevere and get there.

Kelly Ripa/TLC Show audition - part 4

continued from last week.......

We entered the room and I think it went well. We were asked to speak for 2 minutes about our product and then we were to answer questions from the casting directors. I think the baby started to cry near the end, but I really don’t remember much. Kirsten said that the casting directors were smiling as we spoke and were nodding as if they understood the importance of our product. I’ll take her word for it as I was staring blankly at the camera during the audition. One of the directors stopped us on the way out of the room to mention that she saw a great need for the bizzyBee in daycares. She got it! At least one of them understood what we were trying to get across.

By the time we left the auditions that day we learned more about the show: The season will be 8 1-hour episodes and 16 inventions will be chosen. 2 inventions will be showcased on each episode. Milojo Productions, The Discovery Channel, TLC, Kelly Ripa, and the Home Shopping Network will all take turns cutting down the list of contestants and the 16 finalists will most likely be notified sometime in September. We weren’t told when the season will begin. So, we left feeling a bit more informed and planned to forget about the whole thing until we heard something one way or the other. At least we made it to the second round!

to be continued........

Kelly Ripa/TLC Show audition - part 3

continued from Wednesday........
Hours passed and our time arose. Thankfully Kirsten, her daughter and I were together so naturally our nerves were calmed. I believe we have a good chemistry together – we compliment each other so well. Just looking at us made the casting directors smile as we walked into the room. They immediately sensed their challenge for the video interview: Kirsten measures at 6’ 1” and I reach somewhere around her collar bone at 5’ 3”. Should I be on stilts? Should Kirsten kneel? Hmmm… We all made light of the situation and continued on with the 30 second audition – our brief introduction to the bizzyBee.

Prior to our audition we had heard inventor after inventor leave the audition room and comment that they weren’t asked to continue on to the second round. I had resigned myself to being sent home after our initial attempt, but happily we were escorted out of the first room to a hallway where we were outfitted with wireless microphones and told to prepare our 2 minute audition, which would take place in a few minutes. We were number 23 in round two. Not bad since 103 women had auditioned before us that day! The nerves set in. Suddenly I realized that I had been awake since 3:30 that morning, I was starving, and wow was I nervous. What was that 2 minute spiel again? What the heck was I supposed to say?
more to come on Monday........

Kelly Ripa/TLC Show audition - part 2

continued from Monday..........
On June 26, about a week later, we were in the air on the way to the auditions, both of us memorizing the 30-second and 2-minute audition spiels we had written only the night before. I met Kirsten and her 8-week-old daughter (exclusively breastfeeding, so she had no choice but to accompany us) in the Chicago airport. Now, Kirsten and I have had a lot of adventures together: Besides inventing a product when our babies were only 2 months old and developing it since then, we had traveled to Rhode Island, Las Vegas, Florida, Texas, and many parts of Virginia all in the name of the bizzyBee. Suddenly we found ourselves facing an exciting new avenue. What were we about to do? Who auditions for TV shows? Certainly no one I know. Were we going to be those people who go on American Idol who can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but their family and friends have told them to “Go for it” because they love them so much? Were we going to be made fun of and realize what we had been working toward for 2 years was a silly pipe dream? What we were about to do seemed so crazy.

After a relatively short cab ride we arrived at the hotel where we would be auditioning and staying for the night. We went to our room and prepared for the audition, beginning to feel at once exhilarated and hesitant as to what we were about to walk into. Downstairs, the audition room was buzzing with excited, nervous chatter from about one hundred women inventors and those who came to support them. We signed in and received our number: 104. Pictures were taken of each woman and her invention. My niece was a trooper and the hit of the day. Everyone stopped to comment on how precious she was. What an icebreaker!

We were told that it would be several hours until our number came up, so we decided to go back to the room and rest. On our way out of the waiting room we met woman after woman who either asked about our invention or wanted to share theirs with us. The women were passionate about their ideas as we were, and had been working as diligently as we had to bring their concepts to fruition. Women were in many stages of realizing their ideas. Some had rudimentary prototypes that were homemade, others had professionally made prototypes, while some women had products that had been manufactured and were already on the market. Yes – there were empty buckets begging for a tune to carry, but mostly there were fantastic concepts that will enrich our lives in some way if they are marketed successfully.
to be continued..........