Bio

I am a bereaved and blessed, fit and healthy, ally and advocate, mom, career advisor, writer and coach, with three children (two here and one who left this world too soon) finding joy in the journey after dealing with secondary infertility and loss for five years and being diagnosed with moderate generalized anxiety disorder in November 2013. I have been married to my college sweetheart since 2000 and we live in my hometown of Evanston, Illinois, with our 20-year old and 14-year old children. We moved back here in March 2022, after 19 years living on the southwest side Chicago, in the Beverly neighborhood (near where Bob grew up).

I have been blogging at Bereaved and Blessed (formerly Four of a Kind) since 2007. My blog is on Redbook Magazine’s Blogroll: The Best Infertility Blogs, allParenting’s Best Infertility Blogs and Circle of Mom’s Top 25 Moms with Inspiring Families. I was a contributing editor for Exhale Literary Magazine, wrote weekly for The Today Voice from July 2012 – June 2013, was a speaker at BlogHer `12 in New York City, and part of the Listen to Your Mother Chicago 2016 Cast.

I am a wounded healer who is passionate about helping others learning to cope and find joy when life doesn’t go as we hope, dream and plan (whether due to due to infertility, loss, illness and/or other circumstances), as well as to work towards our health and fitness goals. I was an American Council on Exercise (A.C.E.) certified Group Fitness Instructor for 18 years that taught classes part-time. I love to exercise and eat healthy (most of the time), which is therapeutic and keeps me in shape. In April 2014, I became a health and fitness coach and started Fit & Healthy with Coach Kathy. In August 2021, I returned the the traditional workforce at Northwestern University, where I am currently employed as a Career Advisor with the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Intergrated Marketing Communications.