Jack Ryan's Journey: Something Else I Was Supposed to be Doing

As a young girl/teen, I didn’t often dream of getting married and having children. In fact, for a long time, part of me wasn’t so sure if I even wanted to be a mom. (The physical act of giving birth really freaked me out. Guess I got out of that by having one emergent and one planned c-section.) I actually didn’t really consider having kids until I met my husband, Jeff. Even then, we waited almost 4 years after getting married to start our family, when I was 33 years old. I had spent most of the years after high school working on graduating from 3 different colleges/universities, hoping to find the right career and not really thinking about having a family. After graduating from the 3^rd university with my degree in library science, I was pretty sure I had found the right career for me. I do love being a school librarian. However, a small part of me still felt like there was "something else I was supposed to be doing." During this time, I also followed a band* all over the place and saw at least 40+ concerts. I was young, unmarried and having a lot of fun. I met some really cool people (some even famous) and even thought for a moment that maybe that environment was where I was meant to be…goofy, I know, but I just knew there was "something else I was supposed to be doing." It wasn’t until almost 4 years ago that I realized that the “something else I was supposed to be doing” was actually the one thing I didn’t give much thought to…being a mom. So even though when I told Jack that it was Mother’s Day and he said, “I think it’s daddy’s day!”…I still want to thank him for making me a mommy. It’s been the hardest and most unexpected job I’ve ever had, but he (and now Harper), make it all worth it! And now I know, there's nothing else I'd rather be doing!