A New Life:The desire to extend her family prompted Karen O'Connor to become her own boss, selling maternity clothes to other mums-to-be, she tells Claire O'Connell
If you are lucky enough to have visited Queensland in Australia, you will know what an inspiring place it can be. And it was there, on a beach on the Gold Coast, that two friends from Dublin resolved to follow their dream of running their own maternity shop.
Karen O'Connor and Suzanne Sherwood knew first-hand just how hard it was to get maternity clothes in Ireland and saw a perfect opportunity to become their own bosses. After intense discussions on the beach, they realised what they had to do.
Before she knew it, O'Connor found herself grappling with a cash register on the first day of business at their new venture, Bump and Beyond.
"I had never worked a cash register in my life until we opened the shop. And, of course, the first day, it didn't work," she recalls.
It was a big change from her previous job as a PA to the directors of a large architectural firm. She had worked there for 10 years, moving to a four-day week when her daughter, Holly, started school.
But, although she loved her job, the demands of family were starting to pull. "It came to the crunch where I was thinking of having another baby and I knew realistically I wouldn't get a three-day week," she says.
Around the same time, Sherwood had just had her first child and saw a gap in the market for a shop selling maternity clothes on Dublin's northside.
The women, who have been friends since school, soon realised they could start a business of their own that would let them better balance work with family life.
Their two families holidayed together in Australia and, while the friends walked every day along the sand, they hammered out their ideas about the shop.
"We talked about it and said: 'Look if we don't do it now, we won't do it and someone else could get in ahead of us'," says O'Connor. "So we just took the plunge. It was a big thing for me to leave a pensionable job, but I knew I couldn't keep working there if I wanted to have another child."
When they came home to Ireland, they went online and e-mailed designers and suppliers. They also scouted around for a shop premises and found a site with potential in Swords. "We thought it would be a good village, with passing trade and a huge catchment area. And because of the M50, people come from all over the place," explains O'Connor.
"But the premises was basically in bits, so we had to do it up ourselves, get everything fitted and it just started from there."
The women looked to friends to help get things moving - architects from O'Connor's former workplace helped with the design and fitting, another friend with fashion-buying experience travelled with them to London to check out the quality of designs and a local friend from Raheny offered therapies in the shop to complement the clothes retail.
"We wanted it to be about more than the clothes, so we have two therapists now who do holistic pregnancy massage, Indian head massage and reflexology. A lot of the hospitals are recommending reflexology for helping you prepare for the birth. It helps you relax and it calms you," says O'Connor.
The two women also drew on their own experience of choosing and wearing maternity clothes, particularly as they have both recently had babies at different times of the year. "I tested out spring/summer collections last year, so I knew what was good and what was comfortable. Then Suzanne was in the autumn/winter collections.
"So, between both of us, we have road-tested the different seasons. I think pregnant women appreciate it when you have used the lines of clothes yourself."
And by pushing herself into the new venture, O'Connor has discovered a new talent: "I never, ever thought that I would be a saleswoman, but I amaze myself sometimes," she says. "And I think having had kids recently makes a difference - you can relate to people a little bit more if you know what they are going through."
By changing her working day, O'Connor now gets to spend more time with her two children, eight-year-old Holly and Bobby, who is seven months old. "It used to take me an hour going in and out of town to work at the architectural firm, but now I'm home in 15 minutes," she says. "And because the shop doesn't open until 9.30am, it means I get to have breakfast together with the kids, then I leave Bobby to my mum's and I can bring Holly to school every single morning."
Building up a rapport with customers is one of the most rewarding aspects of O'Connor's new line of work, particularly when they travel from afar, or come back on subsequent pregnancies. "It has been a great buzz setting this up. I had a few weeks of pulling my hair out when we were building the place, but I would absolutely do it all over again, no question," she says.