Choices are hard. Melissa "chose" the conventional life in the way most people choose a conventional life; it seemed to simply happen to her. So, she chose to be a "happily" married mother and nurse, living a quiet, simple life. A good life. The kind of life her mother lived, and her mother before her. Until she couldn't bear it anymore. A colicky baby. Postpartum depression. A sense of the walls closing in. A moment of desperate inspiration. A baby product. What started at her dining room table as a basket and unique fabric liner eventually reached overseas production, international distribution to five countries and the shelves of such giants as Target and Babies"R"Us. Ultimately, to be acquired by a large juvenile company in 2011. Melissa tried to walk both roads at once. But she was like a blind, obsessed traveler. A sensible person would have given up. But it was a "sensible" traveler who had opted for the conventional life to begin with. So, though the process was as frustrating and hopeless as moving sand from one end of the beach to the other, Melissa could not stop. She would not. A passion had overtaken her. Her idea, her invention, would not die. It had become her only hope for her emotional survival. Disasters and tears outweighed the victories ten-to-one during those seven years. A second colicky baby, a crippling postpartum depression with flashes of psychosis, a mother losing her battle to pancreatic cancer, a nervous breakdown and lockup, a flailing business that survived the 2008-09 economic crisis, an affair, a tenacious, bottomless bottle of vodka, one foot in the door of bankruptcy, divorce. Ultimately, there were two roads. The conventional, a marriage and family with everything done according to plan. The other, a business where everything was essentially done wrong. One led to failure. The other to success and the rebirth of a new woman, a woman who found a way to her true self, true happiness and even contentment for her family and herself.
About the Author: Melissa Coleman Bramlage is an entrepreneur, registered nurse, mother and lawn-mower extraordinaire. Founder and former CEO of SaraBear, her patented diaper caddy line and popular brand was acquired in 2011. Melissa knew her experience in creating and marketing SaraBear could be eye-opening and inspirational for other would-be entrepreneurs. But for a long while the wounds were still too fresh, the exhilarating highs too high, the dark lows too low. By 2013, she was finally ready. It was time to tell her story. So, tell it she does, with candor and heart, revealing a journey of personal transformation by way of a one-in-a-million triumph. Melissa knows in the marrow of her bones and the pit of her stomach that to be a successful entrepreneur you have to be up before the sun, ready to face the day with all its potential joy and heartache. You have to shrug off the conventional advice of friends and family. You have to confront the road "less traveled" with the faith that your resume will read like hers, "Doer of many things, none of which seem to have any relation to one another - unless you possess the eyes to truly see!" These days, when she's not obsessively in quest of the perfect green lawn, Melissa can often be spotted along the country roads of upstate New York, with a drooling mastiff hanging its head out the window, as she proudly drives her embarrassed kids to and from the ball fields of their glorious youth.