Our Big Surprise!

In 1989, when we were married, we started out life with 6 Children, and then had gained custody of a 14 year old daughter, in 1993. However, since we did not have a child together, we started trying to have a baby in 1990, when my husband had his vasectomy reversed. I had a miscarriage in June of that year. It was a horrible miscarriage. The day of my miscarriage, my only niece was born. When my mom called to tell me about my sister's baby, I was telling her that I was on the way to the hospital, and had just lost our baby. Her words hurt. I realize that she just didn't know what to say, but, "Well, at least you guys have 6 already," is not an answer that helps. I felt as if there could not be a God, I blamed God, and everyone else too, especially myself. Everytime one of our friends or family had a baby or was pregnant, it hurt. I steered clear. I was angry and hurt, and becoming bitter.

It was a very hard decision not to actively pursue having a child any longer, when we moved to Georgia in 1995. The emotional roller coaster we were on with taking fertility drugs on a monthly basis, and the monthly let down that happened every month when we realized that our efforts had again been in vain, was just too much. In addition, our oldest daughter, (who was then 16, was expecting, as well). We made the decision to just give up and enjoy ourselves, and our grandchild, that was on the way. When our daughter had the baby, that seemed to help me to heal some. I had someone that I was able to be 'happy' for when she had a baby, despite the circumstances that were not great.

Life was just going along status quo for our house, with 7 kids and a just about one year old grandchild in the house. In mid to late October of 1996, we received a phone call from my ex-husband asking if we could bring the 3 kids (from my former marriage) to Wisconsin for his dad's funeral. We agreed and made the appropriate arrangements. The morning before we left for that 16 hour drive, I had grape-nuts with warm milk for breakfast, something I had been doing since I was a small child, growing up in Minnestoa. I got sick. I thought geeze, I must have used milk that was a bit old. At that point I just put it out of my mind.

We went to Wisconsin, took the kids to my ex, and all went fine, except, I kept having to stop to go pee, all the way to Wisconsin. For a woman that my husband affectionately refers to as 'Madame Iron Bladder," this was not normal. We visited with my parents while the kids were at the funeral, for that weekend with my ex. My parents took me shopping for a late Birthday present, to buy me some new jeans and a couple of tops. While shopping with my mom, I started to cry, because every single pair of jean I tried to put on were too small through the waist! I thought to myself, "I know I am not gaining weight because the scale says that I have lost 10 lbs, what the heck is wrong with me?" Again, I dismissed it.

We came back from the trip to Wisconsin, on the 16 hour ride home, I had an attack of bowel problems, and we had to stop SEVERAL times. I thought "Geeze, something I ate, must not have agreed with me, big time." With the very small amount of food I was able to eat, this was not likely. (For some reason, I could only eat a few bites of food and I was full, this had been going on for a few weeks by this time, but I had not noticed until a few days before.) This fact elluded me at the time, however.

Upon arriving home, everyone unpacked, went to bed and all either went to work or school. Everyone that is, except my older son. With our arrival home, and constant running while in Wisconsin, he was just too beat. I got up, and made some breakfast for the two of us, he had cold cereal and toast and I had grape-nuts with warm milk again. Of course, this was a brand new container of milk. I ate my breakfast and no less than 5 minutes later, I was headed to the bathroom to be sick. After a few minutes, I got to thinking about everything, and looked at my son, who was then 12 years old. I asked him to walk the block over to the drug store and get me a pregnancy test. He looked at me with a smirk on his face and a twinkle in his eye and said, "Okay, but this is gonna cost ya, big time!" I looked at him and laughed. I gave him some money and sent him on his way, along with his fee for the 'embarrasing' trip to the store.

He came back with the test. He had even 'value shopped' for the test, and got me two of them for the price of one. He even got the correct test I had requested. I went into the bathroom and did my thing in the little cup. After I was done, I opened the bathroom door and dropped the urine into the 'test well' according to directions. After a minute, my son came into the bathroom and just looked at me, and down at the test again. He said "Mom, tell me that does NOT mean you are going to have a baby." I said "Son, I can't tell you that." The test read positive!! We had been trying to have a baby for 7 years by this time. I was in shock, how could it be, when I had not been on fertility drugs for over 2 years? A million things went through my mind at that moment. My son looks at me, on his way out the door, and says, "Oh that's just great, we are going to need a semi truck for a car pretty soon!" I just laughed.

I called my husband at work. He had NO idea when he left that morning for work that I even 'thought' I could be pregant, because I didn't. I asked him, "Honey, are you sitting down?" He said, "Yes, why?" I said, "You better be, because I have something to tell you." He said, "Okay, what is going on, are you okay?" I said "WE are fine." I said, "You are going to be a DADDY, again!" The silence on the phone made me worry. I asked him, "are you okay??" He said he was fine, and was so excited I think the entire complex must have heard him!

On a beautiful day in 1997, our daughter was born. I was 33 years old. The youngest of the older children was 9 years old when she was born. The miracle child that we had waited soo long for, was finally here. The wait was worth it. She is special and of course, perfect. (Of course, just as any parent would think.) She is our miracle child. Believe it or not, the story does not end here. Since having her, we have adopted 6 other children, so, we have a total of 15! Just as with her, the others are ALL miracle babies and are all just as loved and wanted. The situations through which the others have come to be ours may not have been great, but they are now in a home where they know they are very much wanted and loved and cared for. The miracle is that if she had not come along when she did, we may not have been prepared to take the others when they needed us to. And 'someone up there' is up there, and watching, and has plans we may not understand at the time, but, knows what we need and WHEN.