They met in a snow storm, married on the coldest day of the year and had a baby amidst April snow. They joked about naming the baby Storm.

She was a Stanford MBA with a career at a big food company in Chicago, where she had a string of impressive titles such as Director of Refrigerated Foods. She’s worked with brands you know - think DiGiorno Pizza - and some you’ve never heard of - like the short-lived FreshPrep. Her life included a three-story townhouse, two cats, a personal trainer and dates from Match.com.

He was from a North Dakota farming family and owned a small business in Red Wing, Minn. His office was in the historic St. James hotel. In the summer, he threw beach parties where neighbors grilled burgers and danced to a band called the Winona Riders.

They met on a blind date arranged by her mother, who lived up the street from the bachelor. She was flying in from Chicago to see family; he picked her up from the airport. That was their first snowstorm together.

We watched the budding romance between Jennifer, my husband’s sister, and Bob, our hearts in our throats. So different, yet so alike. Both had yearned for years for kids. Both loved the thought of living by the river. Both were 38 years old.

They were married less than a year later on a freezing February day. She quit her job, sold her house, moved to Red Wing. By the next summer, the woman who had launched a thousand pizzas had a bun in the oven (okay, that line sounded better in my head…)

“She gave up corporate America for me,” he liked to say.

Their baby was born last Friday. For the family, it was bigger than the launch of the iPhone, with just as much planning and secrecy and elaborate execution. The parents didn’t want to know in advance if it was a boy or a girl so Jennifer and her mom went to the local baby store and picked out - but didn’t buy - one blue and one pink outfit. Her mom had instructions to rush out and grab the right one after the birth so the baby could wear it home from the hospital.

Like all big launches, there were operational hitches: false contractions, a breeched baby and eventually, a C-section. Market conditions were mixed: both her brothers had coughs and colds that kept them away from the hospital. There was a pesky reporter lurking: me, the sister-in-law, who in my excitement, nearly accosted them coming out the operation theater, almost messing up their plan to present the baby for the first time in their hospital room, the three of them, as a new family. “So many rules!” said my mother-in-law, more tickled than ticked off, as we were shooed away by a nurse.

The baby was pink, wrinkly, gorgeous and warming up nicely against her mother’s skin. The new mom looked radiant (there’s something to be said for skipping 10 hours of labor.) The new dad could hardly contain himself. “If you were a guy,” he told his mother-in-law, “I’d punch you!” (Ah, the universal language of guys…)

“She’s beautiful. In fact, she’s probably perfect,” my mother-in-law told each person she called on her pink cell phone. As for the name, she told everyone, “they want to get to know the baby first before they decide.”

They huddled for a few hours, this focus group of two. Then they were ready for the announcement.

Welcome, Abigail Elizabeth Marie Schmaltz.

She’s already a hit.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 13th, 2008 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Family Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.