friends. Her name was Nadine and her family had been in the area for decades, just like Jordan’s had. Nadine reached out to Jordan and told him that they were considering moving in to the city because of her husband’s failing health, and to do so, they would have to sell their home. This home hadn’t even been put on the market, yet and we were excited to take a look. We jumped into the car and took the short drive to see the house. As we drove, I tried not to get my hopes up, but I couldn’t help wondering if we were driving to see our home for the first time.
We passed through the little town of Ropesville, Texas, and continued on the highway for another three miles. By the time we got to the house, we were only about fifteen miles from Lubbock, a city of almost a quarter million people. We turned off the big highway and crossed the train tracks to see a large brick house. As we drove across the three-acre pecan orchard, I was stunned to see two more giant mulberry trees in the back yard.
It was like someone took the list off our kitchen table and painted a picture of what I wanted. I was so excited to see the house, the trees, and the wide-open space, that I hardly heard Jordan mutter something about how nice the shop was in the back.
“Shop? Who cares about a shop when you have all these trees!” I thought.
As we walked into the house, it got even better. The house had two large living rooms that were separated by a wall of windows. The first bedroom we came to had wood paneling on the wall, and it had its own bathroom inside the room. The bathroom had a stand up shower, sink with a cabinet below, and toilet.
The second bedroom had white walls and was huge. I figured I could fit two twin beds and still have over half the room for playing. It also had a built-in window seat. I thought about how I could have someone make a cushioned seat for it. It would make a very nice reading spot. I could imagine our children laughing and playing in this room, even though we only had Cason at the time. I could hear their little voices and it got me even more excited.
This was an older model home, so everything had that look, but it had a wonderful structure and we knew we could make simple changes to make it our own. The carpet through the whole house, even in bathrooms, was white and didn’t have a single stain. That made me nervous with these messy boys, but I just pushed the idea of grease and dirt stains to the back of my mind and focused on how beautiful this house was.
As we walked through the house, I was so surprised at how big it really was. Room after room and they all had their unique quality to them. Even the laundry room was special because it had two sets of cabinets, a large walk-in closet, and access to the basement, which was very small, and used primarily as a storage room and as a storm shelter.
The kitchen was moderately sized, but more than enough for our family. It had an island/bar that came off the fireplace, which separated the kitchen and the dining area. The dining area and the main living room were combined.
There was a back room that they called their sunroom. I wasn’t really sure what a sunroom was used for, so I just called it our second living room. The sunroom had floor to ceiling windows all the way around. The only gap in the windows was the back door, which opened to the substantial yard.
In the back yard were those beautiful mulberry trees I saw from the front.
“This would be my office,” I thought. “I will raise our children and it will be my favorite place to have them. I could just sit under these massive trees and enjoy the perfection of this place. ”
Jordan finally got me to come back inside by telling me that we still hadn’t seen the master bedroom. I snapped back to reality and hurried back in to catch up with the others.
When I got to the master bedroom, I didn’t want to leave. The master bedroom was twice the size of the other bedrooms. They had a king-size bed and a twin bed and a couch all in this bedroom and I could still make my way around. It had his and her sinks and closets. The bathroom even had a tub and shower that were separate. I was in a fantasyland. I’m sure everyone could see how much I wanted the house, so Jordan wasted no time and started haggling over the price. We arrived at a deal that made us both happy and I knew my search was over. I had found the house I wanted. All we had to do now was turn this house into our home.
Miracle of Babies
When Jordan and I were married in March, 2009, I was already blessed to be a mother to my stepson, Cason. I truly loved Cason and we developed a relationship that was unique. Our relationship began like you could imagine. At first, Cason was very protective of his dad. If I ever sat next to Jordan, Cason would come push me away and sit in my spot. He never really said anything about it, but you could always tell that he needed time to get to know me. He needed time to see if I was good for his daddy.
In an effort to begin to build a better relationship with Cason, we began to set aside time each day for just the two of us. Every afternoon, Cason and I would play while Jordan cooked dinner. It wasn’t long until Cason would choose to sit with me instead of Jordan. On Saturdays, Cason started to go to work with me and be my little helper. After about a year of working on this relationship, during bath time one night, Cason called out, “Mom!!” I looked at Jordan, stunned because he had never called me mom before. He had always called me Dannie. So after the initial shock, I got up and went in the bathroom where he was.
“Why did you call me Mom?” I asked.
Cason said, “Because I wanted to. Don’t you want me to call you Mom?”
I said, “If that is what you want to call me then I’d be happy for you to call me Mom.”
Growing with Cason was hard, but it was a necessary part of making a family. Jordan and I knew that we wanted more children, so we had to start that process by building a solid foundation for additional kids. We didn’t know the Lord yet, but we knew that the three of us would have to be a solid group of people so that we could encounter whatever came our way next.
We wanted a large family, so we were excited to start having more kids as soon as we could. Seeing that my relationship with Cason was growing, we wanted to take the opportunity to begin building on the family we had.
However, when I went to the doctor for my yearly checkup, my doctor explained to me that I had a condition called anovulation. He told me that it wasn’t severe and that my life was not in any kind of danger as a result of it, but my chances of getting pregnant were reduced because the ovulation process was necessary for me to get pregnant.
I could feel the sting of doubt start to creep into my heart. I couldn’t imagine my life without children of my own and the thought of that cut me deeply. I had wanted to be a mother for as long as I could remember.
I wanted to be the kind of mother my mother was to me. I wanted to invest in my own children with the same kind of passion my mother had for us. I wanted to give of myself so that they could have more and hopefully achieve more than I could ever imagine.
So, when I found out that I might not be able to have babies, my heart sank. I couldn’t believe that I just got married and I had to tell my new husband that I might not be able to have kids.
Not yet believing in Jesus at that time, I didn’t know what to do. I sat in my sorrows and just wished for a better outcome. I had no one to turn to. I wanted to change what was going on, but I didn’t know how. All I could do was hope, but hope in what?
My doctor put me on birth control to get my body to ovulate. It’s funny, as I look back, the way for me to get pregnant was to get on a pill that made it impossible to get pregnant. Nevertheless, I went ahead and did it.
I followed that regimen day after day, and day after day, I just had to trust that the doctor wouldn’t steer me wrong. The process did not comfort me and I still felt very alone throughout the months. I began to hope that if and when I got pregnant, the child I had could be enough to fill the void in my heart.
After three months of birth control, my body started to ovulate normally. The doctors decided to take me off of birth control and start Clomid. Clomid is a medication that helps to ramp up the fertility process in women who have trouble getting pregnant. The doctors seemed