The story of Saranoni truly began with the birth of our first child, Eliza. She was born with microtia, a congenital condition that caused her to be born without a fully developed outer and middle ear. As she grew old enough to be considered for corrective surgery, we soon learned the procedure was considered a cosmetic surgery, and wouldn’t be covered by insurance. The cost was over $100,000.00 for just the outer ear surgery and didn’t include the middle ear or other surgeries that would be needed. This was a high cost for our young family, now with two more of our children in tow. Our wheels started churning on how we could help our daughter have the opportunity for these surgeries and we made the decision we would launch our own business endeavor to bring in extra money. We were in the thick of raising little ones and I remembered the corporate gift baskets we’d received from Nathan's company after the birth of a new baby. While always well intended, they were often full of low-quality items that were quickly disposed of and lacked any real value, and I felt we could do better. So we set out to build a highly curated baby gift basket company. With 3 young children, an ambitious goal and little to no experience, I made my first shaky steps into the business world in 2006, as Nathan had a full time job. to assemble and sell gift baskets for new babies, a world I was very familiar with, being in the thick of raising three young kids. I loved the creative aspect and soon found myself at the family computer late into the night while my babies were asleep, emailing back and forth with artisans from 3rd world countries. Featuring their beautiful work in my gift baskets brought me a sense of fulfillment and joy and quickly became my outlet! Among the items featured in the gift baskets (including jewelry and baby clothes) were luxury baby blankets. I had no idea then, that those baby blankets would be what people would fall in love with the most! As exciting as it was to start this new venture, it wasn’t all moments of joy. Weekends were often filled with long drives to craft fairs, grueling hours of packing and shipping out of our basement, and days where it seemed like nothing was working. At one point Nathan and I fulfilled orders from our storage unit in the freezing dead of winter, with our kids bundled in the car. One night, exhausted by the burden of this endeavor on top of motherhood, I told Nathan that I was simply done. It was too much. After spending some time in prayer and in conversation together, we knew that Saranoni was here to stay. We made the decision that Nathan would join the company part-time, we would transition into a luxury blanket company and drop all of our other products and that we would start selling to baby retailers. That night changed our lives, and the decision to work together was a gift! We jumped back into the game of business together with a renewed energy to live up to our company’s name, Saranoni, a combination of the names of mine and Nathan’s maternal great grandmothers. These two women–Sarah and Noni, exemplified values of faith, strength, hard work, service, and family. Their legacy has influenced the way that we choose to do business. We take pride in the relationships we have with our manufacturers and sewers, the quality of our products, and the culture of kindness and service in our company’s everyday actions.