Pickles & Ice Cream; an Obvious Resource for Expectant Parents

Thirty-year-old Erin Meckfessel never really played any team sports at either St. Joseph’s Academy in Frontenac or Regis University in Denver. But ask her about life in the National Basketball Association, and she can give you the whole run down.

That’s because upon graduating Regis in 2004 with a communications degree, she became a full time nanny for the Kiki Vandeweghe family. Seems that Vandeweghe, former star at UCLA was an all-pro performer with the Denver Nuggets.

When he quit active play and moved with the NBA to New York, he wanted the family’s nanny to move with them. By then, she felt it was high time to go home and start her own career.

Even now, Meckfessel is a part-time nanny. But in the fall of 2011, she launched her own company Pickles & Ice Cream, based out of her Kirkwood home.

So what is Pickles & Ice Cream? Glad you asked.

Pickles & Ice Cream is a St. Louis-based baby planning service. She is the only employee in the company. “When you call the number, you get me,” she said proudly.

Her clients are sometimes well established moms, often lawyers and doctors who are having their first baby, and just overwhelmed by the experience.

Meckfessel is the calming voice in a sea of storms and chaos. “You might call me the filler-inner for the families,” she said proudly. She provides soon-to-be parents with support, resources and a shoulder to lean on.

Many young to middle-aged moms are counting on her expertise. Among other things, she is certified to teach baby sleeping techniques. However, she is not a medical professional by trade.

She restores a lot of faith and confidence in the new moms so both mom and baby can ease away tensions, and get some much needed sleep.

Meckfessel, who is married to Doug, a sales rep in the food services industry has high hopes for her company. Often, during the day, for just a $30 daily fee, she will email back and forth with clients helpful hints, often with those living out of town.

Her advice and consent is worth its weight in gold.

“I’m able to put to use my communications skills. I do everything for the moms,” she said. Among others, she sets up the registration for baby showers. “So much money is wasted buying the wrong things. I know how to pick out just the right car seats for new borns, and where to take them to get them installed.”

“I have found many of these moms have taken fertility drugs to become pregnant, often leading to multiple births.” That, she says “is a much bigger issue to deal with.”

Meckfessel, who grew up in Des Peres is a 2000 graduate of St. Joe. There, she did some diving for the school. “I love the school. I’m trying to find ways to give back to the Angels,” she said. For one, she’d like to take part in seminars that deal with developing new cottage-industry businesses like Pickles & Ice Cream.

For now the Meckfessels call a condo near downtown Kirkwood home. She too would like to raise babies of her own and have a Kirkwood home with a white picket fence within walking distance of all the local attractions.

In 2011, she completed course work at the International Maternity Institute in San Francisco. That made her a certified child sleep consultant. She can handle just about any routine situation, but stays clear of children with medical issues. “I’m not a doctor or a nurse,” she claimed.

“I do a lot of evaluating of family lifestyles. I spend a lot of time going one on one with the new daddies. They like that. I get a lot of feedback about my business. People really like the name.” She works hand in hand with lots of busy pediatricians offices.

Pickles & Ice Cream is a perfect match for moms with newborns and who have a lot of uneasiness and lots of unanswered questions. Meckfessel’s career goal is to solve all of those problems, and do so much more.

Pickles & Ice Cream (314) 489-2644. Website.