Jody
Williams, a loving and joyous mother of three,
wanted her older brother and his wife (neither of
whom cared to be named) to experience the same joys
of parenthood. But they couldn't get pregnant even
after eight in vitro fertilization attempts.
"We saw the
frustration they were experiencing so I offered to
become a gestational mother," said Williams, a
Pascagoula native interviewed at her home in Mobile.
After Williams
tried one time and failed to be a surrogate for
them, they asked her a couple of years later to give
it a second try.
"I said, 'Sure, no
problem.'
The hospital
fertility staff took the sperm and fertilized the
eggs from the would-be dad and mom, and implanted
two eggs in Williams and two in her sister-in-law.
"We held hands and prayed," Williams recalled.
"We had pregnancy
tests a few weeks later," she said. "My brother made
a three-way phone call including our mom, and said,
'I have good news.'
" Williams was
pregnant and so was her sister-in-law.
After nine years of
marriage, her brother would become the father of
fraternal twins born to different women in different
states on different dates.
The moms both had
successful pregnancies. "It was a miracle," Williams
said.
She would deliver a
healthy 8-pound, 3-ounce baby girl April 26 by
Caesarean section, and her sister-in-law would
deliver a healthy 8-pound, 6-ounce baby boy by
natural delivery May 7.
"It was a
wonderful, beautiful experience, a real blessing,"
said Williams, who lives her pro-life beliefs.
Williams and
husband, Dean, have three children, 9, 6 and 4.
"Our children
accepted that this wasn't our baby," she said, "and
that we would send their little cousin home to the
children's aunt and uncle. We will always have a
relationship that began before she was born when our
children were feeling my tummy and talking and
singing to her."
The twins'
grandfather, Lester Thompson of Gautier, took the
baby to his daughter and son-in-law in another state
just a few days after her birth. The baby was named
after her grandmother, Sarra, who had passed away
unexpectedly during the pregnancies.
Fred and Diane, the
other grandparents, who were present for both
births, are still singing the praises of the miracle
twins.
Diane was at work
as a secretary of the Pascagoula Fire Department
when she got the phone call about the good news of
two successful in vitro fertilizations. "I was
crying tears of joy and then I got a fire call," she
remembers. In the midst of the phone call
celebration she had to dispatch a firetruck.
Williams said, "We
listened as our excited mom dispatched a truck and
was right back on the phone with us to celebrate the
good news."
Diane is proud of
her daughter, the surrogate mom. "Jody is a
wonderful mother to her children, and she works full
time as a radiation therapist."
Williams'
sister-in-law, a certified public accountant, said,
"We can't thank her enough. She is a great mother.
She has three beautiful children that she loves and
adores, and she wanted her brother and me to have
that too."
"Jody is
exceptional," said her brother. "She approached us
about being a surrogate, and when her husband, Dean,
said to me on a fishing trip, 'I want Jody to do
this,' then I got serious. It was unrequited love
shown by both of them."
Williams said, "I
carried little Sarra but God created her, and we
give Him all the glory for these miracle babies. We
know His hand was all over this. I couldn't have
done it without the total support from my husband,
children and close-knit family.
"The reason I
agreed to this interview," Williams explained, "is
because of my stand on pro-life. I want this to be a
positive impact and change someone's mind who might
be going to have an abortion. I encourage young
women to look at adoption as a choice. Women who
grant adoptions are the real heroes in my eyes
because they show such an unselfish act of love.
"You can never have
an idea of how many lives will be impacted
positively by such a gift of life when you allow an
adoption for a family who desperately wants a
child."
She knows
first-hand about families wanting children and
praying for a chance for an adoption. The rest of
the story is that her brother and sister-in-law were
also able to adopt a baby just before the
pregnancies so now they have three children, just
like the Williams family.
"I was so honored
to be a part of bringing Sarra into the world,"
Williams said. "I wouldn't trade it for anything."
Now, that's love.
