Meet the Family - Jennifer

I consider Jennifer to be my third daughter, my daughter by a different mother (and father).  Jennifer is married to my son, Steve and is very special to me.  She is beautiful, funny, kind and thoughtful, but most of all, she makes my son happy. 

Steve and Jennifer had known each other for a while before they started dating because her family and ours went to the same church.  Jennifer is a few years older than Steve and when he knew that he wanted to ask her out, he asked me if he should.  Of course, my reply was that age did not matter, only what was in your heart.  I'm so glad now that I encouraged him to ask her out, because I could not have gotten a better daughter-in-law. 

We are lucky that they do not live too far from us and so we get to see them often.  She and Steve do not have any children yet, but I do have a grandpuppy, Titan.  When they do have children, I know that they will both make wonderful parents and will raise my grandchild up to be a loving and kind child with the background that they will need to make their way in life.

Meet the Family - Becca

Becca is my baby girl and has always been a beautiful child, well..... except for those first couple of days.

When Becca was born, they had to use forceps to get her out (she was a very large baby - almost 10 pounds) and it caused her head to have corners (I swear she looked like an alphabet block!). When I first saw her I cried (I didn't know that her head would round out in a couple of days - all I knew was that her head was square...).

My mother-in-law was the secretary in the church I grew up in and when she came into the room and talked about what a beautiful baby Becca was, I cried more. She had never lied to me before. Finally one of the nurses told me that it wasn't permanent and she would be fine in a couple of days. Boy, was I relieved!

With the exception of a few Kodak moments, she turned out really well, if I do say so myself!

She has grown up to be a beautiful young woman and has a great personality. She has lots of friends and is constantly on the go - sometimes it's really hard to keep up with her. We have a good time together (but it usually ends up costing me!) and I'm sure we will for many years to come.

Meet the Family - Steve

Steve was the first child I gave birth to and so I really didn’t know what to expect. Of course, everyone gives you advice and tells you all the things that happened to them while they were pregnant. Somehow or another though, they must not have had the same experiences I did because no one ever mentioned the things that happened to me.

The night before Steve was born I woke up in the middle of the night thinking that my water had broken. I wasn’t having any pain so I decided to take a shower before I woke Bobby up. Well, he must have been sleeping on pins and needles because the minute I stepped into the shower he came into the bathroom wanting to know what was going on. As soon as I got dressed we headed to the hospital.

They checked me in, did a little test and then told me that my water had not broken. Then they proceeded to tell me that my beautiful little baby had kicked my bladder and had caused me to go to the bathroom. (Not a great feeling when they tell you that you just made a trip to the hospital for wetting the bed!). I was scheduled to be induced the next day anyway so rather than send me home and make me come back the next day, our doctor decided to go ahead and induce my labor while I was there.

I had planned on having an epidural so that I could be awake for the birth but not in any pain. After they gave me the medicine to start labor but before the pain got too bad, they gave me the epidural. Well, it was great and blocked the pain really well….. on one side of my body that is. It turned out that I had what they called a “window” and that the epidural had gone to one side. They gave me a booster shot thinking that it would numb the other side. It did, but in the process it numbed me so much that I could not feel a thing from my waist down.

When they came in to take me to the delivery room one of the nurses asked me to just pick up my bottom and help them get me onto the gurney. I laughed at her and then said “Pick it up??? I don’t even know where it is!” After a few minutes of pushing, pulling and yanking, they finally got me onto the gurney (think about those people who try to get a beached whale back into the water – it was a little like that!).

We finally made it into the delivery room and right before Steve was born, they went through a shift change. Talk about loosing your dignity. There’s nothing like laying on the delivery table exposed to God and everybody and then they all leave and a whole new shift comes in…. if it hadn’t been so funny, I probably would have cried. We did have 2 of the nurses that stayed with us through the whole delivery. All in all it was a great experience, we laughed and told jokes and then laughed a little more.

My dad had been wanting a little girl since I had told him I was pregnant and had even brought a little pink sleeper to the hospital for his baby “granddaughter”. After Steve was born, Bobby went to the waiting room to tell everybody that we had a boy and he said that Daddy’s chin dropped for just a moment and then he jumped up and celebrated with everyone else. No man loved his grandson more than my Daddy loved Steve. Up to the day he died, Steve was his buddy and the joy of his life.

Steve is all grown up and married now and has turned out to be a fine young man. He makes us very proud. This story will probably embarrass him to death but it’s still funny no matter how you look at it.

Meet the Family - April

April’s mother, Joy was Bobby’s first wife and was also a friend of mine. When she and Bobby started dating, she came into our circle of friends instead of Bobby leaving, so we all became friends.

During her pregnancy with April, Joy was diagnosed with toxemia, which is also known as preeclampsia or pregnancy induced high blood pressure. It causes you to retain water and lots of other nasty symptoms. It can cause major complications if not treated. Joy was advised to drink lots of water, not to eat salt and to stay away from junk foods. Unfortunately, she didn’t heed what the doctor said and constantly ate junk foods, especially frozen pizzas.

Bobby, Joy, Bobby’s sister Anita, her boyfriend and several other people went to Daytona for the 4th of July. Joy was about 6 months along and her doctor advised her that she should not go but she went anyway. While there she started to retain fluids and by the time they got home, she was very sick. The doctor put her into the hospital saying that she needed to deliver the baby or she would die.

Bobby and Joy were told that if Joy delivered naturally, then her body would expel most of the toxins she had built up but they gave the baby very little chance of surviving. If Joy had to have a cesarean section, then there was a possibility that Joy and the baby would not make it. Joy was induced to try and make her deliver the baby naturally, but it began to put too much of a strain on her and the baby and so they decided that the doctor would perform a cesarean. Because of this, there was very little strain put on April and she managed to survive against the odds.

April was 1 lb. and 11 ounces when she was born and breathed on her own from the beginning. All they did was give her a little oxygen. She lost a little weight but then started to gradually gain weight daily. April was the first baby to ever come home from Northside Hospital before she weighed 5 lbs. She weighed about 4 and a half pounds, but had been healthy from the day she was born so they decided that there was no need to keep her.

April was so small that she would fit in the palm of Bobby’s hand and her head could go all the way into a small styrofoam coffee cup. Due to the fact that she missed her last 3 months of development in the womb, she was a little slow learning to walk, talk and to learn some of the other skills that come naturally, but other than that, she had no problems.

Today she is a happy healthy adult with a daughter of her own.

Meet the Family - The Kids

Bobby and I have 3 kids, April (who is by Bobby’s first marriage, but she’s always been my first child – even before Bobby and I married), Steve and Becca. Our children are not exceptional except for the fact that they are beautiful, smart and well-rounded.

They were taught from an early age to respect other people’s property – the first rule at our house was “if it’s not yours – DON’T Touch It!! They grew up knowing that if they disrespected their teachers, anyone from church, their grandparents or just about anyone else, then the punishment would be severe.

They knew that if they were sent to the office for being bad that they had better go ahead and call for an ambulance and family and children’s services because they were going to need them by the time I got through with them.

They were taught to say “yes ma’m and no ma’m, yes sir and no sir”, to open doors for others, to say thank you when someone did something for them, to respect figures of authority, to honor the flag and to be kind to others who were less fortunate than they were.

I am very proud to say that my children are not axe murderers or thieves, they aren’t members of gangs, they don’t do drugs, and don’t live off of the government. They are just good well-rounded American kids. I'm not saying that they are perfect, because by no means are they even close to perfect, but I couldn’t be prouder of any of them.

They’re all adults now and letting them go was a really hard thing to do because they will always be my babies. Sometimes I can’t quiet let go, but it’s getting better and a little easier as time goes by. Most of the time I enjoy the empty nest, but sometimes it gets really lonely and I want my babies back, then I get over it.

I seem to have trained them well and so far so good..... Just remember to give your babies lots of hugs and kisses because before you know it, they get to "big" for them. Either that or teach them that they will never get to old to mind their mama (which includes giving hugs and kisses) or their mama will take them down a notch or two!

"Train up a child in the ways he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it" (Proverbs 22:6).

Meet the Family - The Husband

My husband, Bobby, and I met in the summer of 1966 when we were both working for VBS (Vacation Bible School) at our church - Lakewood Heights Baptist Church in south Atlanta. Bobby's mother was the church secretary, my mother's sister Eloise was the head of the Women's Misson Union (WMU) and her husband, Uncle Hamp, was the chairman of the deacons. Our roots run deep in the Baptist church and it has always been a big part of our lives.

My first real encounter with Bobby was when the youth went on a retreat to the Cherokee Mountains to see the play "Unto These Hills". I hardly knew anybody on the retreat because I had just started going to Lakewood Heights with my aunt, uncle and cousins. I was friends with Bobby's sister, Anita and ended up in her room for the retreat.

When we first loaded the Greyhound bus that would take us to the mountains, the only seat left was the very last one at the back of the bus in front of the bathroom. If you've ever ridden on a Greyhound, then you know that this is the shortest seat on the whole bus because of the bathroom. Well, wouldn't you just know that the last person to get on the bus would be the tallest one too. You guessed it, it was Bobby and the only seat left was beside me.

I was very shy back then and the thoughts of a guy sitting with me was just scaring me to death. He sat down and of course, had nowhere to put his legs because they were so long. One leg went into the aisle and the other onto my half of the floor. Of course, being shy, this meant that I had to scrunch up into the corner of the seat so that his leg would not touch mine and I rode all the way to Cherokee this way. I was so thankful for the bathroom break so I could stretch my legs out that I was beside myself.

All through the trip it seemed as if fate kept throwing us together (not to mention the fact that all the kids were pairing up and Bobby seemed to get stuck with me - sort of...). It might not have been too bad except that his sister was my friend and as it turned out - we were staying in the room being chaperoned by Bobby's mom and weren't able to escape after curfew (as if I would EVER do anything like that!).

All in all it wasn't a bad trip, but if I could have cut Bobby's legs off at the knees for the ride up and back, I think it would have been better!

Through the years, it seemed as if Bobby was always there for the major things that happened in my life. He would take me to special events like my Senior Prom when I didn't have a date (his girlfriend lived in Tennessee and could not always come to Atlanta for school and church events). We were part of a close group of friends that were always together and have remained friends to this day.

Family and friends alike tried to get us to date, but by pushing us harder they only managed to push us apart. For that I thank them because I firmly believe that had we married after high school, we would never have made it. God knew his plans for us and I'm glad we both had the experience of living a life without each other because it only made our lives together stronger.

Remember to tell the ones you love that you love them and tell them often, you never know when you may not get another chance to say "I Love You" . . . . . .