Catherine Ann Rought hadn’t spoken to Thomas Wade Jacobson in 25 years when she started yelling at him during a deafening concert in May 2018 at the now-closed Trocadero Theater in Philadelphia.
“I’m Cathy Rought!” she recalled screaming over and over again during the show by a Pink Floyd cover band.
She and Mr. Jacobson broke up after graduating from Sterling High School in Somerdale, NJ. But when Mrs. Rought learned he would be at the concert, at which a mutual high school friend appeared with the band, she made the extra effort to attend.
“I was always in love with Tommy in high school,” said Mrs. Rought, 46, who lived in Brooklyn at the time. She is a graduate of Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ, and is senior vice president at BerlinRosen, a public relations firm based in New York.
After a jolt of recognition, Mr. Jacobson gave her “a giant hug,” she recalls.
That hug immediately sparked, said Mr. Jacobson, 48, who joined the Army National Guard after high school and now works remotely on the operational technology team at Siemens Healthineers, a medical device company.
Mr. Jacobson added that he had always liked Mrs. Rought, but the timing was never quite right for pursuing a relationship. At the time of the concert, he was living in South Jersey and in a relationship with someone else. That evening, when Mr. Jacobson introduced Mrs. Rought to his girlfriend, she was a little deflated. Later, they diplomatically handed each other her card, suggesting that they would get together if they were ever in New York.
That fall, after his relationship ended, Mr. Jacobson contacted Mrs. Rought. Unbeknownst to him, she was three months pregnant.
About the time her previous marriage ended in divorce, Mrs. Rought, then 37, had frozen her eggs. “I wanted to be a mother,” said Mrs. Rought, who used a sperm donor to get pregnant. “I didn’t want to feel desperate.”
She was hesitant to tell Mr. Jacobson about her pregnancy until months later he asked if she and her other half (he was fishing to see if she was single) would like to join him at a reggae concert in Port Chester, NY.
“I have no other half,” she replied, and then the singer came. “But I’m seven and a half months pregnant.”
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Mr Jacobson was impressed. “It’s so great that you’re doing this for yourself,” he said, and after she agreed to go with him, he insisted on buying chairs instead of standing. The next evening, he went to her house, where they watched the cable TV series “BoJack Horseman” and ordered takeout.
“I was dizzy,” she said. “I really liked him.”
From then on, Mr. Jacobson checked in every few days. After Mrs. Rought’s daughter, Eloise was born in February 2019, he created an upbeat playlist to cheer her up as she struggled with postpartum depression.
“The whole mix sounded like sunshine,” said Mrs. Rought.
When he visited them the following month, one-month-old Eloise immediately grabbed his finger.
“I loved that little girl,” said Mr. Jacobson, who had always wanted children. After Mrs. Rought put her to bed that night, the two had their first kiss.
“My 650 square foot apartment was our meeting place,” she said.
Mr. Jacobson loved bottle feeding and doing the dishes, while Mrs. Rought became a master at stacking her pram with an overnight bag and baby gear when she stayed with him. By Thanksgiving, he had moved in with her, and in February 2020 they moved into a larger space in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.
“We kept talking about getting married,” she said, and at Eloise’s third birthday party, their friend, Reverend Julia Macy Offinger, an Episcopal priest, offered to pay the respects.
On March 25, Rev. Offinger performed at Grace Church in Manhattan for 30 vaccinated guests. During the ceremony, Eloise held both hands and then ran around to greet everyone. Mrs. Rought and Mr. Jacobson, planning to adopt Eloise, later celebrated with a reception at the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
“She stole the show,” said Mrs. Rought, taking the groom’s name. “Parents usually don’t get to choose their children, but Tom had the honor of choosing her.”
