March 24, 2015

Facts About Me (from 2007!)

I didn't really have much to write about today, and for some reason I was reading through my old blog from 2007. I came across a post called "10 Things You May Not Know About Me" from 8 years ago. A few of the things haven't changed, but a couple of them made me laugh because they have most certainly changed!

3/14/2007:

1. I met my husband when I was 17 and he was 18. He was my first real boyfriend, and I was his first real girlfriend. I knew after about a month that I'd marry him one day. That was 8 years ago. We've been married for 3 1/2 years now.

2. I had two rare things happen during my pregnancies. With Noah, I developed a condition called Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy (ICP). It's a liver condition that basically makes your blood itch--it's HORRIBLE, and you constantly itch all over (everywhere that your blood flows). I became suicidal at the end of my pregnancy because it was so bad, and the doctor induced labor 2 weeks early. With Eli, I dislocated my pubic bone (basically stretched out the ligaments that hold the pubic bones together). It was horribly painful. After the birth, it was even worse. I couldn't walk for a while, and then I had to use a walker. 

3. I've never had a cavity, stitches, or a broken bone. Or been hospitalized for something other than giving birth.

4. My "dream job" is a forensic pathologist. That's what I've wanted to be since 7th grade. I'll never do it, though, because the schooling is WAY too long.

5. I refuse to fly. My brother is a pilot for Northwest Airlines, which comes with lots of perks--but I won't take advantage of it. I'm not afraid of crashing or anything, and I can't name exactly what bothers me so much. My brother took me in a flight simulator, and I even had a panic attack in THAT. I've tried Xanax, Valium, drinking alcohol--nothing helps. (I've flown lots of times, but the last time was in 2003 and I'll never do it again).

6. I'm obsessed with nutrition. That was my major when I quit college. I wanted to be a dietician. Maybe someday I'll finish when my kids are in school. I'm constantly reading about nutrition and diet--I can't get enough!

7. I'm addicted to ice--literally. I chew it all day long, probably the equivalent of 2 liters of water. I chew it faster than my ice machine makes it. When I don't have ice, I get really anxious and that's all I can think about. I have lots of "back-up" ice cube trays for those days that I'm waiting on the machine.

8. I'm extremely shy. I'm horrible at meeting new people because of my shyness. I get very intimidated, especially around thin people. I always feel like everyone is thinking about how fat I am. Numerous people have told me that this kind of thinking is just dumb, but I can't help it. That's what I think. I keep hoping that after I lose this weight, I'll be a little more extroverted.

9. I have a pen pal in North Carolina that I've been writing to since 2nd grade. Our teachers assigned us a pen pal, and we just kept writing. Five years later, we met in-person, and we visited a few more times since then. She even came to my wedding.


10. I get really jealous of women who nurse their babies. When I had my kids, my milk never came in (I even took drugs to stimulate lactation). All over the place, you hear all the reasons to breast feed, and some women really look down on you if you use formula. I just want to scream that "I didn't have a CHOICE!" I know there are much worse things in life (there are women that can't have babies, for goodness sakes, so I should be grateful). I AM grateful, but I still get jealous of women who breast feed, because I was never able to.

Haha! It was fun to read this. Here are some post-scripts:

1. Jerry and I have now been together for 16 years, and married for almost 12 years. These pics were both taken at a Tigers game--the first in 1999 and the most recent in 2014. How we've changed! ;)

I must say, I like the new Jerry-face better than the old
2. I still get anxiety when my body has an itch. I worry it'll never go away, and it'll itch like when I was pregnant with Noah!

3. Haha! I jinxed myself with this. Since then, I've gotten my first (and second and third) cavity; and I fell and broke my jaw, requiring a week-long hospital stay, two surgeries, and, of course, stitches. 

4. I still think this would be my dream job. If I wouldn't have to go school forever, I'd do it. 

5. I didn't fly from 2003 until 2010; in 2010, I'd lost over 100 pounds and had a moment of bravery. I was visiting my brother in Minnesota (we'd driven there), and his roommate offered to take me up on The Breezy (see pic below). I forced myself to do it, just so I'd have a cool Facebook photo, haha! A couple of weeks later, I flew back to Minnesota for a spur-of-the-moment Ragnar Relay position on my brother's team. This blog has given me lots of other opportunities to fly (I just got home from Portland a week ago!), so I've done my best to "get over it". I still need wine to get on the plane, though.

Fun fact about Steve (my brother's roommate in photo): His mom was a
flight attendant on the flight that D.B. Cooper hijacked in 1971!

6. Not as obsessed with nutrition anymore. When I was always trying to lose the weight, I read everything I could get my hands on. But since reaching goal, I'm not as interested.

7. Currently, I am not hooked on the ice. But once in a while, I'll go through a period of about a year or two that I am completely addicted. I'm always afraid of ruining my teeth by chomping on the ice, but I can't help it.

8. Still terribly shy. Even at my thinnest, I was shy and had a hard time meeting new people ;)

9. My pen pal and I have known each other for nearly 26 years now! I wish that teachers still did "pen pals", where kids would write a letter and drop it in the snail mail. I loved getting mail from her! And sometimes we sent packages, which was the best.

Me and Elaina, when I was visiting her in 10th? grade. Yes, I was very cool
in those glasses ;)
10. I still feel like my kids missed out by being formula fed, but it doesn't bother me much anymore. I did what I could!


16 comments:

  1. oh my gosh you and Jerry were SOOO 90s in that first picture, I LOVE it!!

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  2. I love that you still have a penpal. I have a friend who loves in Hawaii and we mail letters back and forth, it's still fun to get mail - esp when it's not bills! You and Jerry are awesome, what a sweet story you have.

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  3. Just earlier today I listened to this podcast episode of the generation why about DB Cooper and they talked about a few stewardesses on the flight.

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  4. I loved this post Katie!! Neat to see how things have changed for you over the years, especially your insistence in never flying again. You've come a long way baby!!
    Bridgette

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  5. Love that your dream job is being a forensic pathologist - mine, too! I did go to college with plans for med school, but ended up becoming a clinical lab scientist (which means I do work with other types of pathologists). I'm 32 now, but I still sometimes think about going back to school to do it. :)

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  6. If it comforts you, I breastfed one kid and formula fed the other, and I prefer formula feeding. :) Plus, the best new studies (the ones that account for confounding factors like socioeconomic variables - that's important!) are finding that there is no long term difference between babies that were formula or breast fed. (Here's a good one, if you care - http://goo.gl/OOhq9e) Anyway, my two cents. It was fun seeing the difference in your answers from then to now!

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  7. I love that you've been blogging so long that you can do a post like this! It's fun to look back. I crave ice to chew when I'm anemic. An odd, but documented, symptom.

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  8. Loved reading all the fun facts. I chew ice when I'm anemic too. I started chewing ice out of the blue a few years ago and a friend mentioned this was a symptom. Once I got my iron stores back up to normal, the desire to chew ice totally went away.

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  9. What a fun post, thanks for sharing! I was unable to successfully breastfeed either of my babies as well. I tried for the first couple weeks, but wasn't getting much milk at all. I saw a lac specialist 2x week and took pills and pumped every 2 hrs to try to get my supply up but the kids weren't gaining weight and once we introduced formula, most of the stress went away so I was fine with it, but would still get jealous of mom's that could breastfeed and would get furious when people said it was the best and only thing for your baby. In the end, all that matters is that our kids are happy and healthy, and mine are! I've always wondered if my lack of milk had anything to do with the fact I was so overweight and stressed out by trying to make it work....

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  10. #8 in the first set is absolutely me. I totally get it. And no matter how many times people tell me they don't think of me as fat, you just can't think of yourself as anything else (though, I certainly could when I had to buy smaller jeans). Crazy how perceptions change over the years. And you and your husband are super cute in those pics. :-)

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  11. That was fun! I didn't breast feed either, and my three grown-up sons are all just fine. Whenever I read about your ice-chewing habit, I think to myself, "I should try that, maybe I wouldn't eat so much!"

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  12. I'm curious if you ever had your blood tested for anemia, since that can be a reason people chew ice. It's also a good thing for someone who puts in the kind of miles you do to monitor =)

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    1. Yes, my doctor tests me for it every year, because of the ice chewing; but strangely, I apparently just have an ice addiction! No anemia :)

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  13. The pics of you and Jerry are adorable. It's clear from pictures how much you love each other and enjoy each other's company. On the breast feeding thing, as a child free person I don't get the big hoopla where some moms are judgey against other moms for stuff like formula feeding. From my perspective if your kid is happy, being fed, and being raised with love and care (in whatever form/method that works for your family) then you're doing it right. Your boys seem like good kids with loving parents, so you're doing things right!

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  14. Oh my gosh! I love to fly, bit would NEVER go up in something like The Breezy! You are more brave than you give yourself credit for!

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  15. My daughter has a couple pen pals that she got through some kind of pen pal website. I had one for years through something my mom signed me up as but lost touch with her after she got married.

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