A Newcastle student created a booming bracelet business during the coronavirus lockdown after her baby was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis.
Erinn Kerr, 32, and her husband Russell, 33, welcomed their daughter Ivy into the world in September 2019. Around two weeks after her birth, their lives changed when they were told she had the genetic condition.
Despite the shock diagnosis, Erinn still planned to return to her job as a Senior Journalist for the BBC in Northern Ireland. However that all changed when she started making her own bracelets from home.
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During her maternity leave, Erinn decided to make herself two gold bracelets - one which said 'Mama' and one which said 'Ivy'. Before she knew it, friends and family were asking her to create personalised bracelets for them.
The family were required to shield when the lockdown hit in March 2020 due to Ivy's condition, which affects her lungs and her digestive system. Erinn became inundated with orders and she set up her own business, which she has named Ivy & Gold.
When it was time for her to return to work in the Autumn of 2020, Erinn didn't feel comfortable leaving Ivy and she took a chance on her jewellery business. She has now opened a shop in her home town of Ballymena, in Northern Ireland, and employs four members of staff.
The mum-of-one, who studied Politics at Northumbria University and trained to be a journalist in Newcastle, said: "It’s great, it’s just totally surreal. It’s not at all what I was going to do with my life. I never ever planned to have my own business but here we are.
"When I left the BBC to go on maternity leave a big group of us went out for lunch and I just thought I was going to be going back to work full-time. I just didn’t consider I would do anything else at all.
"We had to shield and I started making bracelets everyday. It was so good to have something to focus on otherwise I would have just been sitting in the house worrying the whole time. It came out of something quite bad and a really difficult time of my life.
"I was really, really scared that Ivy was going to die. I thought that if we got covid and brought it into the house she would get it and she wouldn’t survive. We just didn’t know then how it affected kids.
"I just threw myself into it. I started really pushing on with Instagram and contacting influencers. It really took off and I did it all through lockdown, it was amazing. Everyone loves it. On Trustpilot we are five out of five all the time."
Five days after Ivy was born, she was given the heel prick test which tests for five rare conditions including Cystic Fibrosis. Erinn said she feared the worst when a health visitor insisted on coming over to her home to speak to her. During the visit, she was put on the phone to a consultant at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, who informed her about Ivy's diagnosis.
She said: "Ivy was born and she had a really lovely birth and for the first two weeks I didn’t really know she had Cystic Fibrosis. It was routine screening that picked it up. It was just a huge shock. I got Russell to come home from work and over the next few days we went to the hospital a few times.
"It's genetic so Russell has one faulty gene and I have got one. Ivy has inherited both of our faulty genes. There was a one in four chance of her inheriting it from us."
Erinn and Russell, who works as a designer, spent the next few months coming to terms with Ivy's diagnosis. Their daughter's condition meant that they were already wiping down seating areas and sanitising her hands before the virus had reached the UK.
Erinn said: "I was doing all that before everybody else started doing it. Then covid happened and it was really scary. I spent a lot of nights crying. I just wanted everyone to be super careful.
"I don’t know what I would have been like without Ivy and Gold to focus on. I wasn't working and I couldn't go out and do anything. It was something that came out a coping strategy. It was like an escape.
"I put everything into the business. The first Christmas was mad, I was up at 5am everyday working and staying up really late. I was really run down because it was so busy. Now I’m much more chilled."
Instead of returning to work, Erinn decided to take a one year career break so she could continue looking after Ivy. As her business began to blossom, she decided being her own boss was the best way she could put her daughter's health first.
She said: "I was still really worried when it came to going back to work. I just didn’t really feel comfortable during that. It would have been scary because I had not really left Ivy’s side for the first year. Lots of people encouraged me to take a chance and not go back to work. I have got amazing freedom now in terms of how I look after Ivy and how I live my life."
Erinn said that Ivy's condition means that she needs to take medication and carry out physiotherapy to prevent her lungs from building up too much mucus. She said: "She’s doing really well at the moment. You wouldn’t know there was anything wrong with her."
Two years on, Ivy and Gold has grown from strength to strength. Erinn has expanded her range to include earrings, necklaces, rings and anklets and her business turned over a six figure sum last year.
Erinn said: "If Ivy didn’t have Cystic Fibrosis, Ivy and Gold wouldn’t have existed.
"I think it’s probably only recently that I’ve been able to feel happy about it. Even though it looks amazing to other people, I still know it came out of a bad time. I can see it as a positive in it's own right now rather than a product of lockdown, covid and Cystic Fibrosis."
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