Bloom Baby Classes Launches in South Liverpool
Introducing danelle
It’s been a while since we introduced our network here on the Bloom Baby Classes blog. It has been quite a year with lockdown stopping and starting classes. However since last July demand for baby classes and baby groups is at its all time high. For a lot of us lockdown restrictions have made us rethink our priorities and made us think about changes we can make to give us a better work life balance.
Here we introduce you to Danelle, our newest franchisee to the Liverpool area. Danelle attended our baby classes in St Helens and Wigan and liked what we did so much she decided to take the leap and join our award winning franchise.
Here is Danelle’s lovely and heartwarming story of finally becoming a mum and why she decided to join our network.
“For over a decade I was immersed in the corporate legal world. I had always wanted to be a Lawyer and after completing an undergraduate and then post graduate degree I embarked upon the start of my legal career representing criminals in police stations at any day of the day or night. I moved into Family Law soon after and worked my way up the career ladder until I was finally employed by a Top 50 national Law Firm as a Divorce and financial remedy Lawyer.
I loved my job and got immense satisfaction from helping clients achieve their goals. I had to work hard to get to that point and it wasn’t easy. Countless late nights, never finishing for annual leave on time, taking client calls or answering emails out of hours, working late in the office and doing business development often after hours were all part of the job.
I married my Husband in 2014. We met at University in 2008 and he too is a Lawyer and National Head of Family Law at one of the top corporate law firms in the Country. Our journey to parenthood was not plain sailing and behind closed doors we became embroiled in painstaking fertility treatment. After several losses and private IVF treatment we finally became parents to our beautiful rainbow baby, Mae in July 2020.
Having run what felt like a race for life for nearly 5 years, making it through a pregnancy riddled with complications and then having our daughter spend her first 4 days in intensive care due to underdeveloped lungs, I guess you could say I was mentally exhausted.
I was really keen to take Mae to baby sensory classes after she was born. I put us down on a waiting list before she was even born for a group local to where I live but it was oversubscribed and I could not get a place. I then discovered Bloom!
We started attending Bloom St Helen’s and Wigan and I quickly realised how precious the time Mae and I would spend in class together was. We were made to feel so at home by our class leader Rachel. I was surprised after giving birth at how anxious I felt about literally everything. Even things as simple as feeding Mae during a class. Seems silly now looking back but in the fog of becoming a mother for the first time and the journey we had been on to get there it took a while to decompress after Mae’s birth and settle into motherhood. I think I was in shock that she was finally here after everything we had been through.
I quickly began wishing the week away so we could go to our next class. As the weeks went by it was clear Mae was getting so much out of the classes developmentally but what surprised me the most was just how much I got out of them too. Not only were they amazing for developing our bond but as time went by I grew so much more in confidence as a new Mum. I felt such a sense of accomplishment that I had managed to get us both to class, sometimes fed Mae during the session and had a content sleepy baby in the back of the car on the way home. The feeling of contentment the classes also gave to me was amazing!
After the New Year thoughts of returning to work started to creep into my mind.
I found a nursery for Mae and had to think about how I was going to juggle being the Mum I want to be to her and my legal career. I agreed with my employers that I would return to work working 4 days a week but something didn’t feel right and I could not honestly say that I was happy with my decision.
I then discovered that Bloom were looking for new franchisees and a penny dropped. I had never in a million years thought about deviating from my career in Law but the opportunity to be my own boss and work so much more flexibly was really attractive. I started having meetings with Bloom’s Founder Victoria to learn as much as I could about the business and how it would all work and each time I spoke with her the more certain I became that this was a real opportunity to overhaul my work life for the better and make sure I could be the mother to Mae I wanted to be.
I was relieved to learn that I did not have to have a background in childcare or education to buy into the franchise and I realised the only thing holding back was my fear of change.
I have always loved the saying “feel the fear and do it anyway” and that’s exactly what I have done. I am now so excited to be on this journey as the owner of my own business. I can not wait to start my classes and give other parents the amazing experience with their babies that I had going to my classes.”
