For the past 14 years, Jenn O'Kane-Fenk and her husband, Mike Fenk, have had the same conversation around the same place every time they drive from their home in Charlotte, N.C., to Pittsburgh to visit family.

"Usually right around West Virginia, we have the same discussion: 'We should really move back,' " Mrs. O'Kane-Fenk, 39, said.

Natives of Sheraden, they first met at a lunch table at Langley High School. She went to Indiana University of Pennsylvania to become a teacher and he attended Penn State to become an electrical engineer.

But upon graduation in 1993, Mrs. O'Kane-Fenk encountered the notoriously tight Pittsburgh job market for teachers. Unable to nab a position, she was forced to search elsewhere and ended up in Charlotte, where Mr. Fenk, 38, joined her.

A dozen-plus years and two successful careers later, with two kids and a third on the way, they're still there, members of Yearn-to-Return Nation.

Despite all the time and all the changes, their Pittsburgh roots are still tugging and their Pittsburgh identities still strong. So strong, in fact, that for years their elder son, 9-year-old Trevor, told people he was born in Pittsburgh.

When Mrs. O'Kane-Fenk overheard him one day, she corrected him.

"He was upset, so I told him he was still a Pittsburgher but it just happened that we weren't in Pittsburgh when he was born."

It's like citizenship, she told him. His mom and dad were Pittsburghers, so he was a Pittsburgher. "Not even a half-Pittsburgher," because his roots here were so deep.

It's not that there's anything wrong with Charlotte, Mrs. O'Kane-Fenk stresses. It's just that it's not Pittsburgh.

"It's not like we're outsiders here. It's like there's no identity because everyone is a transplant. So there's no culture to assimilate to."

Despite missing home, she doesn't regret moving to Charlotte. The new city provided her with a job and a chance to discover her love of life in the classroom.

"When I was student teaching [at Woodland Hills High School] there were substitutes that had been subs for 10 years that had never had their own classrooms. I really needed to see if teaching was something I needed to do, not something that I waited around for years and years and then didn't really like," she said.

The family always visits Pittsburgh for the Fourth of July and Christmas. They make sure to come in through the Fort Pitt Tunnel at least once during their stay and get a "sammich" at Primanti's. But those are their only routines because Mr. Fenk and Mrs. O'Kane-Fenk are trying to introduce their kids to as many things Pittsburgh as possible during each trip. Wholey's was a big hit last time.

But visiting Pittsburgh twice a year isn't much of a Band-Aid for homesickness, and the Fenks are finally realizing that.

Last year, heading home from their July 4 visit, the idea of moving back to Pittsburgh became more than a brief conversation in West Virginia.

"We just looked at each other and said, 'We just need to go back. Let's just do it.' It was the first time in 14 years that the conversation changed," Mrs. O'Kane-Fenk said.

The catalyst was an evening out with several old friends and teachers. On the ride home, one of them sent Mrs. O'Kane-Fenk a link to information about a job opening at Chatham University.

That position wasn't the right fit for her, but the couple are now on the job hunt, checking every possible avenue and every possible contact and hoping something turns up.

After all, it'd be great if -- this time -- their next child could really be born in Pittsburgh.

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