While Noel was in the Seminary at Dubuque, Iowa, the men would be assigned a location where they would do an internship for one year, after two years of study. It was at this time in the Spring that I got pregnant with our first child, David. We served in Dutton, Montana. David was born in Choteau, Montana, thirty-two miles away from our parish, in a snowstorm.
Two years later, Noel accepted a call to Froid, Montana, on the far eastern side. Our second son, Shawn, was born in Williston, North Dakota, sixty miles from where we lived. We then thought we’d like to try for a girl, and ended up having another wonderful son, Brian, also born in Williston, North Dakota. I guess the Lord knew we were destined for sons. I had no problems with my pregnancies but did have a miscarriage between David and Shawn. I was only three weeks along. When I had Brian, I had absolutely NO pain, and they had to tell me to
PUSH…why?
I don’t know, except that God is good. We thought our three sons completed our family, but I still longed for a daughter. God had other plans. We put our name into Lutheran Family Services to adopt a girl while living in Chester, Montana. In the meantime, Noel had done some counseling with a pregnant young gal who wanted to have an abortion. He suggested she could adopt the child out to a family and live with us to help get her life straightened out. She consented. It came time for the adoption papers to be signed. She just couldn’t sign them, so she came home to our home with the baby. We helped her become a mother to him, and today, he is our fourth son. She wanted us to adopt him. It was all in God’s plan, and he is such a blessing to the rest of the family and us.
In the meantime, the adoption agency called us to say they had two sibling girls they wanted us to look at. We declined because we knew God had given us four boys to love and nurture.