Peapods Goes From One Woman’s Dream To One Mom’s Reality

The Daily Times:

“People said, ‘Are you crazy? You have 2-year-old twins, a teenage son, your husband is in Iraq and you’re going to open a business?” Whitney Carmean says with a laugh, “My father tells me I’m a glutton for punishment.”

Four years ago, Carmean says, starting a business was far from her mind. She had a new marriage, a full time job and a son to keep her busy. Having a baby was even further from her mind, and the thought of twins? Nonexistent.

“I find out I’m pregnant, and I’m lying there getting a sonogram and the doctor said, ‘Look Whitney, I see two heartbeats.’ I sat straight up and said, ‘Are you telling me this baby has two hearts?’ Dr. (Dan) Eisemann, bless his heart, said, ‘No Whitney, I’m telling you you’re having twins.’ So yes, I was shocked.”

When the pregnancy turned out to be high risk, Carmean quit her job at Life Crisis, moved to Kentucky, and waited.

Then Oprah arrived. “The Oprah Winfrey Show came to Fort Campbell and gave all of the pregnant women — I think there were 600 of us — tons of stuff. I already had two of everything from my family, and now I have three of everything. And it was good stuff, too.”

A few months later, the Carmeans’ twin girls — Broghan and Lochlyn — arrived, just in time to see their dad head to Iraq for a second tour. “So here I have these premature babies, a few months old, and I’m thinking well, now what am I going to do?”

Carmean returned to the Eastern Shore, took care of her three kids and wondered what to do next. Returning to her previous job was out of the question.

“Then, when the girls were about a year old, my aunt called and said, ‘Whitney, I had a dream. You need to open a store and call it Peapods.’ I thought she was crazy.”

Six months after the dream, Carmean opened a secondhand children’s store in Fruitland with the “stuff” she got from Oprah and the clothes her children were quickly outgrowing. To advertise the business, she paid her then-13-year-old son $20 to dress as a duck and pass out flyers and candy at the Fruitland Easter parade.

Today, Carmean can usually be found sitting on the floor of Peapods with the twins nearby, sorting through baskets of merchandise.