Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalie Tsui.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I have baked for as long as I can remember. I actually come from a family of bakers. My Aunt Jass – one of my father’s sisters – made the best bread I had and HAVE ever had.
I think I started off baking cakes. And then I moved on to bread – makes sense, right?
Oh I just loved it. Baking was so therapeutic for me! Especially bread. You cannot rush bread; you have to knead the dough, wait for the dough to rise, knead it again, wait for it to rise again, and then bake it. This is not a quick and easy process, but boy is it worth it! I baked through my twenties. When I was off at college, I would bake bread whenever I went home and continued to bake whenever I had the space and opportunity.
In 2013, I was in NYC pursuing an acting career. I had gone to school for acting and had recently moved back to NYC from LA, where I realized it wasn’t the scene for me. I felt like I was on the precipice of something happening in my acting career when I got a call from my father that my stepmom had suddenly passed away. He was devastated. I dropped everything. Within two weeks, I was on a plane to Houston. I never went back to acting. I wanted to, but life has a way of altering your direction, whether you like it or not.
I did not know anyone in Houston. I got a job, and my coworkers were the only people I knew, apart from my dad. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I baked. My dad doesn’t eat cookies or cake. So, anything I baked I brought to work. One day, someone asked me if I sold my treats, and Cookie Nookie was born.
At that time, Cookie Nookie just existed within the confines of the hotel I worked at. I sold to my coworkers, and that was about it. Over the next few years, I met this guy at a ‘meetup,’ moved to Indianapolis for a career opportunity, started a long-distance relationship with that guy, moved back to Houston, and then married that guy. That guy’s name is Wilson.
I continued baking, but Cookie Nookie fell by the wayside.
Wilson and I settled into our life together and decided to start a family. It turned out to be an extremely difficult and painful experience for us. We miscarried our first pregnancy. My doctor recommended speaking with a fertility doctor because of my age and the miscarriage. We met with the fertility doctor who recommended IVF (In Vitro Fertilization), but we decided we would try IUIs (Intrauterine insemination) first. We had sticker shock from the estimates they gave us for IVF. Neither procedure was covered by our insurance, and IUIs were much less expensive than IVF.
Well, 4 failed IUIs – and a few thousand dollars – later, we switched clinics and were advised that IVF was the best route for us. By then, we had come to terms with the fact that it made more sense to go the IVF route than throwing MORE money at something that clearly wasn’t working for us.
At the start of IVF prep, we got pregnant “naturally.” We were so excited and thought maybe we wouldn’t have to pay for the super expensive IVF treatment after all! But shortly after finding out we were pregnant, I miscarried for the second time. It was devastating.
So, we drained my 401K and maxed out 5 credit cards. We wanted a family so badly.
Throughout all the heartache, I baked.
And one day, we found and dusted off my old menu, and without any discussion as to whether we should or shouldn’t, we resurrected Cookie Nookie, and it became what it is today.
Cookie Nookie is so much more than just a bakery. It is a way to use my passion for baking as an outlet for all the pain, heartbreak, and anxiety of infertility, a means to bring in additional income to help pay down the debt incurred from years of infertility treatments, and a way to show support to others in the infertility community. We share my passion for baking, the pain of infertility, and the joy of your dreams finally coming true – and the silly moments of day-to-day life. We also share our miracle rainbow baby we fought so hard for. Cam is our EVERYTHING.
And my biggest, scariest, all-consuming dream is to get Cookie Nookie to a place where we can offer grants to other families struggling with infertility. Infertility treatments take such an emotional and physical toll on a family. They shouldn’t have to stress about how to pay for it as well.
We are not close to that big scary big girl goal YET. But in the meantime, we have a monthly Infertility Warrior Giveaway, where someone in the community wins our treats. We want to show we see them, we are rooting for them, and we are there for them. Because we ARE them.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No aspect of our journey has been smooth. But that just makes you stronger, right?
As I mentioned earlier, at the onset of starting Cookie Nookie, we had our second miscarriage, which confirmed the need for IVF. We went through months of shots, procedures, bloodwork, all while trying to grow our little bakery. There have been times when we have had a steady stream of orders and times where we have had no orders. And those times are especially hard because this is not a little hobby we have. We need Cookie Nookie to be successful not just to pay down our debt incurred from fertility treatments but because, more than anything, we want to be able to use Cookie Nookie to help others. That goal is so much more important to us.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about The Cookie Nookie Bakery LLC?
We are a sassy online bakery that strives to use something we love – baking and being super silly – to bring joy and levity to our followers. Especially those in the infertility community. We share our IVF journey, all the highs and lows of our day-to-day lives, while using baking and sweet treats to help us through it.
We sell cookies and brownies. In monthly variety boxes and have a ‘Cookie of the Month.’ We also have a monthly COOKIE SUBSCRIPTION, where subscribers get a unique and delicious treat delivered to their door every month! We also recently launched our ‘Nookie in a Jar’, In each jar we provide the dry ingredients, to make our treats, you just add the wet ingredients. We do all the hard work!
I am proud of our mission to help others. We have a monthly Cookie Nookie Infertility Warrior Giveaway where we gift a box of our Subscription treats to one person in the infertility community.
I want people to know that we are so much more than a bakery. That every purchase helps us grow our family and gets us closer to our dream of helping others grow THEIRS.
Any big plans?
Our plans are to keep growing, keep telling our story, and hopefully, one day, be able to help change lives.
Pricing:
- $45-$55 per box of Cookie of the Month
- $50-$65 per Variety Box
- $28 per Nookie in a Jar
- $50 2-pk of Nookie in a Jar
Contact Info:
- Website: GetCookieNookie.com
- Instagram: @GetCookieNookie
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/natalie.tsui.568?mibextid=dGKdO6
- Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/cookie-nookie-bakery-llc-22b17b255
Image Credits
Jan Angeline
