Your heart will fill with joy as you read the first chapter of Katie’s book Big Girl Decisions, where she describes how I fell in love with Thomas, my husband over heartburn pizza and a valentine’s box. Katie’s life with Thomas was filled with happiness, some much in fact that the idea of disturbing that happiness with the creation of a tiny human paralyzed her. She didn’t want to share my husband. She didn’t want to put her career on hold, stop writing music, or doing all the things she loved doing. She was terrified about how much her life would change once she became a mom.

One day, she woke up and the idea of having a child didn’t make her want to curl up in a ball and hide. On that bright beautiful day, she knew it was now or never. She took the plunge and was pregnant four months later.

You may cry during the chapter titled She Swings and Misses, where Katie describes driving home after learning she wasn’t miscarrying on my own and would need to have a D&C. The loss of her pregnancy changed her forever. Thomas and she somehow got through it together, and in the mix of it all they smiled again and grew closer as a couple. Nine months after that she was looking at two tiny pink lines. I was so excited she starting running around the house singing at the top of my lungs.

You laugh when she tells the story of her seven-month-old son throwing up on Thomas, the family dog, and again in the tub. Just picture an eight-month pregnant lady leaning over the tub trying to clean the throw up off her kid. Yep, that was a shining moment for Katie. Her journey to motherhood was challenging, humbling, and completely life-changing. It has changed her in ways she never could have anticipated and her relationship with Thomas has changed, but for the better. She is a mother now and there is nothing in the world she can’t do.