We matched!!!

Ever since Logan had braces (yes, the first time) he decided he wanted to be an orthodontist.

The journey of dental school seemed daunting, let alone tacking on ortho but it was what we wanted to tackle! We applied, interviewed and picked A.T. Still MOSDOH as our winner.

Our time in Kirksville was good, bad, happy, sad, + honestly it's just a dreary place. But we learned and grew our relationship in ways that would have never been possible without that crazy little town.

If you know Logan at all, you know he doesn't half ass anything. ;) He takes his time with everything, a little OCD at times! But the ortho dream carried on!

Half way through dental school we moved to St. Louis to finish out the remaining 2 years. Logan would finally get to see patients and put everything he had been learning to work!

Our third year was crazy. Catching up from 'rona... finally having a successful pregnancy + attending all of those doctors appointments made the year fly by.

Logan made friends with the orthodontist at school and lined up putting a few of his classmates in braces at her office. He came home one night saying he wanted to do braces AGAIN! I literally cried and cried about it. I asked him to hold off until we got family pictures, he agreed and willingly put himself in braces again.

Because board scores in dental school are just pass or fail, many ortho schools require you to take the GRE as part of your application. So we purchased a course and both attempted to dig up any old knowledge. It was ROUGH! We spent many nights in bed trying to master the crazy new words they want you to know. Blah!

Before we knew it we had Benson, and boy had our life changed! We had board exams and ortho applications to complete... it seemed next to impossible.

We spent entire weekends taking turns trading off the computer to look up secondary fees, and requirments for programs and taking a turn with Benson. It was so exhausting! We spent hours on the phone with my mom + DJ reading over his personal statement, editing and formatting the CV. One night it finally all came together, we submitted the application and took these pics to celebrate!!

Some stats for perspective :
Each year approximately 750 people (through MATCH) apply for the 332 seats available nationwide. Each school varies from taking anywhere from 1 to 14 people. Every single one of the applicants are soooooo qualified. Some have even been practicing as general dentists for years! It is so competitive!!!

Logan recieved 3 interviews! Alabama, St. Louis, + Pittsburgh. We were thrilled!! We decided to make a road trip and join him on his trip to Alabama! We had the BEST time!

St. Louis' interview was on Zoom so he hunkered down in our bedroom for the day and we tried to stay quiet :)

The last and final interview Logan flew off to Pittsburgh! My parents actually showed up and surprised me while he was gone! It was so nice not to be alone.

We submitted our rank list and waited the week until Nov 19 to get results! We were worried sick about it. Logan took the day off on the 19th so we could either celebrate or cry together! Results come out at 7 am. We slept soo terrible the night before. Around 7:15 am I rolled over to look at Logan and he said WE MATCHED AT ST. LOUIS!

What a freaking relief!!!! It still doesn't feel real. I am sooooooo incredibly proud of Logan. Nobody really understands what it takes to get here unless you've done it yourself. Literal blood, sweat, tears, and a shit load of $$$.

We are so excited to have some time to find a new place to call home here, and continue our education.

All of those crazy dreams we had 7 years ago are coming true! Tears have been shed over never having to do another crown prep or denture again :)