Things That Didn't Go According to Plan.

Graduating college. I was extremely paranoid about graduating college. For months, I made pointless meetings with my advisor to go over things "one last time" because I just had a gut feeling something was off. I even met with a second advisor, because I couldn't shake the feeling. Aaaand my gut was right. 
Two days after class registration had closed for my last semester, I got a letter saying that a mistake had been made and I was one credit short of graduating. When I went to talk to both advisors, they simply shrugged and told me mistakes happen and I'd just have to hang around one final semester.
I emailed every single class that still had room and begged them to let me in, and they all said no. So I moved on to emailing professors I'd had a good relationship with, and finally, one emailed me back and said they had a TA spot and if I worked for free, I'd get a credit. Sold. 
It turned out that one of my best friends was also a TA for him, and it also turned out that he wasn't really excited about teaching a night class. So, he didn't. He left, and for eight weeks, we taught an adult night course of Com 1 all by ourselves. It was terrifying and fun and it taught me a lot. And while I still get angry when I think about how that school tried to screw me over, I wouldn't change that experience for anything. 

Buying a house. I am not the best decision maker. I need a lot of time and details to decide on something. So basically I am a nightmare person to try to buy a house with because that is a huge decision. 
We came up to Gainesville and spent a whole day looking at houses. We left, having narrowed it down to two. I thought that one house was a clear front runner and Chris thought the other house was a clear front runner, so we spent a few days talking pros and cons and looking at the pictures online every five minutes. After much deliberating, we finally picked one. I had a doctor's appointment that morning, so we texted our realtor that we were ready to make an offer and we'd call her after my appointment. 
When I walked back into the waiting room, I could tell something was wrong. Chris told me that in the time it took for my appointment (maybe 30 minutes), someone else had made an offer and it had been accepted. 
The problem with buying the second house was that we'd spent three days talking ourselves out of it, so we decided to go look at it one more time. On our way up there, Chris pulled out his iPad and found a new listing he thought we should see since we were already there. And that was our house.
It was so perfect for us that both Chris and our realtor got on the phone with the owners and the bank before we'd even seen all of the rooms. And we never would have seen our perfect house had the other one not fallen through.

Having a baby. Not only did this not go according to plan...there just wasn't a plan. That's how far away we (thought we) were from starting a family. We hadn't even talked about timing. 
And then, surprise! Jack happened. And it has been better than if I had been able to plan it myself. 

Matching in Gainesville. I've said before that the match process is crazy. Once Chris sent in his applications, I wrote the names of all the cities on index cards and either hung them on our wall (if he got an interview there) or threw them away (if he got rejected). I had a feeling that we were supposed to live in Gainesville, but I didn't realize how heavily I was trusting that feeling until Chris got a rejection email from them. It devastated me to throw that card away. I called my mom and cried because I had truly thought we were supposed to end up there, and now that wasn't even an option. 
And then, a month later, Chris got a phone call from someone saying they didn't know how a mistake was made, but his rejection email was sent by mistake, and could he please come in for an interview? And three days before Jack was born, he did. And two months later, we matched there.
Life is weird and exciting and strange and wonderful and funny. 
Tell me about something that didn't go according to plan for you!

Goodbye, Orlando. Love You Forever.

I remember the first time I "came home" to Orlando. We got back from our honeymoon the first week of January and it was freezing. I had only packed tropical clothes, naturally, and shivered in my neon orange shorts the whole way to out apartment. When we walked in-my first time coming home to this new place-it was just so warm and cozy and immediately felt like home. 
Orlando was my home for three and a half years. It's where I had my first lease and my first legal drink. It's where med school and match day and graduation happened. It's where we got Gatsby. It's where Jack was born. It's where I made friends and lost friends and made some great decisions and made some poor choices and ultimately became someone I was really proud of. It will always hold a giant piece of my heart. A giant piece of me. 
So goodbye for now, Orlando. Goodbye to the apartment that warmed my heart three and a half years ago and goodbye to the tiny apartment in the sky with the view that took my breath away the first time I saw it. Goodbye to the best tacos I've ever had and to my favorite sushi happy hour. Goodbye to Lake Eola and the farmer's market, to the best rooftop pool, to the traffic that makes me crazy. 
I'll miss you. 
I told Chris the other day that I thought we did our time in Orlando just right. We didn't outgrow it so soon that we didn't enjoy our last bit of time in Orlando, but we outgrew it soon enough that I'm not sad to be leaving. How can I be when a perfect home and the next chapter of my life is waiting for me in Gainesville? It's never easy to say goodbye, but having a hello waiting right around the corner makes it a little bit sweeter. 
Thanks for all the good, Orlando. I'll love you forever. 

Do I Look Any Different?

Do I look any different than I did last time we talked? 

Because I'M A DOCTOR'S WIFE NOW. 

I don't know when that's going to get old. It's been three days and it's not old yet, so just bear with me. 

Graduation has come and gone, and the love of my life has finally achieved his lifelong dream of becoming a doctor. A real, live, cut-people-open-and-sew-them-back-together doctor.

So, this is it. The end of a journey. The end of an era. The last post I will tag with medical school. Four years of hard work (that doesn't even do it justice) and here we are. 

I want to say that med school has been good to us, but I don't really think that's the case. Med school isn't really good to anyone. It's hard and it sucks and it's exhausting and isn't really good to any student, until you make it through it. 

But he made it through it, and I made it through the four years with him. 

So while I don't think med school was good to us, I think we were good to med school. We made the best of it. Christopher worked diligently and tirelessly at school and in the hospital and then would come home and force himself to stay awake long enough to hang out with me. We made the most of the rare days off, adventured when we could, spent money on fun stuff when we could, and ate ramen noodles when we had to. 

Chris zeroed in on his goals. He bought me a puppy and I learned to not be terrified of spending nights alone. We supported each other and pushed each other and loved each other through every good and bad day of the last four years.

Being married to a medical student is hard and exhausting and frustrating at times. But it has been an honor to stand with him over the last four years, and it is an honor to stand with him now, watching his greatest dream come true. 

One last thing: Life is weird and cool and strange and amazing. Four years ago, I never ever EVER would have imagined being a family of three at graduation. But sitting there, holding Jack while I was tearing up listening to the graduates read the hippocratic oath, I couldn't imagine it any other way. 

yeah, I'll just eat this real fast.

Goodbye, medical school. Thanks for all the lessons I'm not going to miss you. 

Onto the next four years! Team Jacobs forever. 

Letters to Jack: 4 Months.

Jack, 
Today is a big deal for me. It marks one year since I found out you were going to be making your way into the world. We can easily call this the most life-changing year for me. 
When I found out about you (after spending $98 dollars on pregnancy tests just to be sure), I was so nervous and scared...I was worried that I wasn't ready, that I wouldn't know how to take care of you. I didn't know how you would fit into the life we had planned. 
Spoiler alert: You fit perfectly. 
A year ago, I woke up and drank coffee and watched Netflix, with zero ideas about how life was changing. Today, I woke up and fed you and snuggled you back to sleep. We're on vacation-see, all of my worries about fun things in life being over were just stupid-and we'll spend the day shopping and playing in the sun and swinging and admiring your sweet little baby giggles that you've been giving out more and more frequently. 

But for now, you're snuggled in next to me, wearing footie pajamas that have dinosaurs on your feet...the feet that you will spend all day trying to put in your mouth. You're sleeping, so peacefully, and you still smell like lavender from your nighttime lotion. Here I am, 365 days later, drinking my coffee in bed again, and here you are, much different than you were a year ago, but still the same little love. 
You have changed every single aspect of my life. So I guess I just wanted to say thank you for that. 
Happy one year of hanging out together, little man. You are everything I never knew I wanted, and I will love you for all of my forever.
xo.