It’s been a while since I’ve told HEA’s story, so here’s a bit of background about us! 

Hey, my name is Nancy and I started HEA in 2015. I saw a problem, there were a lot of pregnant women in my small town and nowhere to shop locally for affordable clothing. 

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So I started Happily Ever after Maternity to solve this problem!  The business started off small, just on Facebook with local appointments. I expanded over the years to add a website, pop up shops, and new apparel to meet needs that secondhand alone couldn’t fill.

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HEA is still run out of my home and I’m still a one-woman show! 

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It’s been quite an adventure! When I started out no one else was doing #maternityresale so I had to make things up as I went along! 

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I’ve had quite a few “I need an adult” moments, you know those moments when you wish you had a mentor or someone with experience to help you answer a question or foresee the long term consequences of a decision!  

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I’ve made quite a few mistakes along the way and tried things that failed but I learned from these trials and came out stronger. If you have a dream, make it happen!  I knew I had to do this, I could feel it in my soul but I had a lot of things to overcome before I could get started. Here were my main three obstacles, all of which are still a work in progress.

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First, was self-doubt. No one around me understood what I was proposing to do. They couldn’t get excited about it and that burst my bubble a bit and made me worry that I was making a mistake.

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Second, this business didn’t fit who I was as a person. I’m not a fashion-forward person. I like to describe myself as a “recovering Tom-Boy”. So describing clothing, creating flat lays, learning the anatomy of clothing and knowing the names of different types of tops dresses and pants is a huge challenge!

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Third, I was going to have to push myself out of my comfort cave. I have social anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder, yikes I said it!  Only a handful of people know about this, but I shouldn’t be hiding anymore so there it is!  When I started this business the idea of letting strangers into my home made me freeze. I’m pretty sure in 2016 there were some awkward appointments because as a result of my anxiety I freeze up in social situations. I am a much better listener than a conversation starter. This was some time that I’ve had to overcome. By overcome I mean to get better at, I’ll never be able to true my overcome it because that’s the nature of anxiety. 

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