Life before kids...

Giselle asked several questions related to life leading up to having kids, which I think I can answer in a brief history-type of post. It never occurred to me that some of you who read wouldn't know all of that. So those of you who have known me forever may want to skip this one...

I grew up in the Dayton, Ohio area with my parents (dad was a cop, mom worked in the business world) and my sister Melanie who is 8 years younger than me. I had 3 grandparents who lived in the same area, too. I had a good childhood and a great group of friends in high school. I had no idea what I was doing when I left for college.

I wanted to study occupational therapy, and I found a 5 year Master's program at Ithaca College in upstate New York, over 10 hours away from home. It seemed like a nice school and they offered me a scholarship, so I went. The first 2 years were pretty rough. I had no idea what it was going to be like to be that far from home. I had trouble making friends (the way they do dorms there didn't encourage the typical cohesiveness), and the schoolwork was challenging, too. Things weren't going well at home, either. During my time at college, my parents separated, divorced, both remarried, and moved. Of course now, 10 years later, everything is good, but at the time it seemed like the end of the world.

Eventually, though, I found my niche in Ithaca and loved it by the time I graduated. I had to do 3 internships for my degree. Each was 8-12 weeks and you were encouraged to travel. So I spent 3 months in Gastonia, North Carolina, outside of Charlotte, and another 3 months in Richmond, Virgina. Part of me went to these places thinking that I might like to live there long term. Warmth, fun cities, closer to the ocean. But what I realized after those 6 months was that I wanted to go home. By this time my Dad and Sue were living in the Dayton area, and my mom and Greg were living in the Pittsburgh area. I had one internship left, so I arranged for it to be in Columbus, Ohio, right in the middle, where I would live with my friend Cindy, who was getting her MBA at OSU at the time. (so no, Giselle, I didn't go to OSU, but it's a common mistake - everyone in Central Ohio assumes that every college graduated living in the city went there).

I think within a few weeks of living here, I knew I would be here long term. It just felt familiar, although I had never lived in this city before. I kept running into people I knew at Target, and there was lots of fun stuff to do. I liked my internship at Columbus Public Schools, and I ended up working there for 5 years (after working another job for 10 months waiting for an opening). That job was a good fit for me in many ways, too.

Also within a few weeks of living here, I met Brian at a Halloween party at my cousin's house (she was going to vet school at OSU at the time). He was having a Bible Study at a coffee shop and I was interested in something like that, so I started going. We became friends. At first it was casual friends. But then everyone who knows us is laughing because it got a little ridiculous. It was four years before we started dating. By that time we were literally best friends - spending time together nearly every day. It was one of those things where everyone we knew was going, "what is UP with them? Why aren't they dating?" But when we did start dating four years after we met, it was just over a year before we were married.

We got married in July. I was still working for the school system so I had the summer off (glory days, although the summer I got married was the only time I didn't get a seasonal job). So I spent the rest of the summer setting up our household and went back to school at the end of August. By mid-September, I started to get nervous. Finally I got a pregnancy test and Brian was telling me it would be negative. I'll never forget the two of us standing over that test in the bathroom, looking at the box in silence, until Brian said, "Well that's huge." So no, we weren't planning it. I had been married for 9 weeks and found out I was 5 weeks pregnant. Yikes.

Of course we were beyond thrilled (and those were some fun phone calls to make - lots of shocked friends and family), but it made for a challenging first year of marriage. I was super sick, overwhelmed at the thought of parenthood so soon, still getting used to being married. Oh, and trying to decide what to do about work after motherhood. I was emotionally attached to my job but there was no part time option, so I was pretty sure I was going to say goodbye.

So that brings us up to Katy's birth. I'll leave the question about ideal family size for another one. If you're still reading - wow!