"My wife and I met in Palo Alto, California. She was originally from Montpellier, France, and I had grown up in rural Iowa. I had lived in Boulder in the 80's while attending graduate school so I was quite familiar with The Catacombs. When I asked my wife to marry me, she tearfully told me that she could never have children as a result of an endrocrine condition that was diagnosed when she was a teenager. Being a medical researcher myself, I contacted a friend who specialized in similar disorders, and he sent us to a local colleague at Stanford Medical School. The physician at Stanford confirmed my wife's condition and explained that our only option for having a family was through adoption; a pretty heart-wrenching depressing realization for my wife.
A few weeks later I traveled to Boulder on business and stayed at the Hotel Boulderado. To cheer my wife up, I arranged to stay at the Boulderado through the weekend and have her fly in to join me. After picking her up from the airport, she was quiet for the whole trip back to Boulder. The minute I got her suitcase into the hotel room, she said that I needed to sit down, that she had something to tell me. She told me that she was pregnant; the joy on her face was probably as remarkable as the shock and disbelief on mine! That weekend we so enjoyed Boulder that we schemed a plan to eventually move to Boulder to raise our family. Our first daughter was born November 15th of 1999 and we moved to Boulder two years later in December of 2001. We currently have three children, two of which were born at Boulder Community Hospital. Still, every time we walk by the Boulderado, my wife and I have to talk about that night and how it changed our lives."
