Forward.....

Disclaimer: If you are creeped out by cheesy posts about love and marriage, please STOP here.

I am going to try and give an honest account of the love story of Katie and Jason DeWitt. I promise a couple of good laughs and a candid look at marriage between two unlikely candidates. Yesterday, Jason and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. That means that we have been together for nearly 8 years. We were married 51 weeks from the day we met in a quickie shot-gun style wedding. As many of you know, we met in a bar. I truly believe that all of the years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and even seconds in my life culminated and were perfectly orchestrated so that I would walk into O'Bryon's Irish Pub on Madison Road in Cincinnati, Ohio at the moment in which I did. I immediately sat down next to who was to become my husband and sparks began to fly. Then there were fireworks and the rest of my life was decided, rather quickly. I moved to Indianapolis, having completed my MSW at UC in June and shacked up with my boyfriend of 3 months in an 0ver-priced apartment and we began our lives together.

Ladies and gentlemen, there was never a question in my mind about our relationship. I never considered whether he would be a good husband, father, companion or friend. I knew he would- I knew in my heart and my oftentimes over-active brain trusted that smitten heart and forward we went. In December, (having moved to Indy in July) I started noticing some changes to my, um...body. I was suddenly a curvaceous woman and inquired of my live-in boyfriend/future doctor whether or not he thought I could be pregnant. "Absolutely not!" was the response I received....like 10 times. Finally, I took a test. It was positive. I was a stereotype. A non-married, knocked up, living in sin pregnant lady. In retrospect, the timing was perfect. In the moment, we were dumbfounded. Adjusting to the idea of having a child in the mindset we had at the time took more than a couple days. Our plans for the short term were rendered irrelevant. We talked ad nauseum about how this could have happend and how we felt fearful and not ready for having kids. The moment where we were able to accept our fate will forever be etched in my mind. As with most DeWitt milestones, it was not during a lovely walk through a garden or over a romantic dinner; it was at Mike's Express Carwash. As we drove our non-child friendly VW through the shooting soap and spinning brushes, Jason, out of nowhere says, "We can do this. Geez, I'm gonna be a doctor in 5 months, you're educated. We're old enough to have a baby." Again, I had never questioned whether he would support me or us. I had never questioned his capacity for becoming a father. I knew this would mean as much to him as it did to me. And, forward we went. We were married in the aforementioned quickie ceremony in Brown County, Indiana. We had a party, I was able to shove my voluptuous self into a dress. It was not the dream wedding; it was not lavish or even very representational of us personally. Nontheless, it was ours and it was perfect. A beautiful, dainty baby girl was born in August and forward we went, as all new parents do, in awe and wonder with a sense of pride and responsibility heretofore unknown. Our marriage is built on love and like-mindedness and those two qualities certainly had their place as we fought our way through Jason's residency and the necessity of my full-time job. Never once did either of us sacrifice one moment away from each other or our darling daughter. Those moments were precious and few and the memories of those first years are inexplicably dear to me.

And then Sawyer was born. Colic nightmare that she was, we now had two gorgeous daughters and a residency that was winding down leaving us with time for family life. My husband informed me that he wanted to pursue a job opportunity in LAFAYETTE, INDIANA. I was truly speechless. For all I knew at the time, Lafayette (West Lafayette) was another horrible and forsaken Indiana town. I wanted to stay in Indianapolis. Or leave Indiana all together. Jason's insistence on moving to Lafayette was incredibly frustrating to me and this was a time that I had to trust him, like it or not. For our loved ones, we do things that are unexpected, scary and often, downright against our better wishes. As many of you know, we moved our young family to West Lafayette, a place where we knew approximated 4 people and we started over. At the age of 32. We lived in a dumpy rental and sweated out the still lingering mortgage in Indy on top of our (again) over-priced rent. We paid 2 sets of utilities and finally sold our Indy home after an agonizing YEAR on the market. And then, we settled down. We bought a home in what I have named "suburban utopia" on Nice Guy St. and were ecstatic to welcome a miniature version of my husband by the name of Eamon.

Last week, I wrote a post about my husband and it may have been misconstrued by some as painting my husband as a neanderthal. Although a caveman on many accounts, he is a great husband, friend, and hopefully a life-long companion. We came from very different backgrounds and value systems. Nonetheless, through all the changes we have been on the same page since that evening in March of 2002 when I sat next to him at O'Bryon's. Forward we go....