Our Story
The Cooper Family
Hi, my name is Nick and this is our story.
My wife, Emily, and I got married in 2015. Shortly after, we were ready to start a family. We had our first son, Jackson, 16 months after getting married. He was a beautiful, healthy little boy who added so much life and joy to our lives. Nine months into Jackson's life, my wife found out she was pregnant again. We were ecstatic. I can still remember the day she drove to my work with a "little gift" because she was thinking of me. I opened it, and there it was—a positive pregnancy test.I worked a simple job that didn't bring in much for our growing family. But nonetheless, we were excited and were going to do everything we could to make it work. We found out we were having a girl early on and named her Jordyn. Our house quickly filled up with dresses, bows, and all things pink. To say we were excited is an understatement. My wife had a pretty easy pregnancy with our son, and it was a surprise to us that the first couple of months with our daughter were going fairly easy as well. That is, until she got through the first trimester. It seemed like it happened overnight. The day before, she was glowing, energetic, and full of life. The next, she was sick, tired, and miserable. We didn't think anything of it. I mean, why would we? This is pretty typical in a pregnancy, right? Wrong.
It was the day of our 20-week anatomy scan. My wife walked in swollen and struggling with sickness from sunup to sundown every single day. This wasn't normal. I knew it in my gut. During the anatomy scan, the room was quiet. Nothing like it was with our son. There were no "oohs" and "ahhs." Just silence. We were brought back to the room, and the doctor came in. This was the day our whole life turned upside down. She discussed with us that our daughter had something called skeletal dysplasia, where her bones weren't growing the way they were supposed to. They were smaller than they should be. She said we'd "find out more after we see specialists."
This is when the roller coaster started.
We went to every specialist in the Houston area. Every single time we went to a doctor, they would find more wrong with her. What started off as skeletal dysplasia quickly turned into her also having brittle bone syndrome, being bowlegged and armed, her lungs weren't forming properly, and she was retaining fluid behind her brain. My wife was always having to miss work because of how sick she was. I missed a lot of work also to be able to make it to appointments. We were barely making ends meet. I even picked up a job at Domino's at night so we could pay our bills. Our son Jackson basically lived with his grandparents at the time. Conversations were tossed around by doctors, saying we could still offer her a comfortable life, while other doctors said we should terminate the pregnancy. My wife contained a lot of extra fluid because of the state of Jordyn's lungs. So, we would have to go get her stomach drained of the excess fluid every couple of weeks toward the end of the pregnancy.
At 36 weeks, my wife gave birth to our girl, Jordyn Elizabeth Cooper. No amount of doctor's appointments or ultrasounds could have prepared us for the state our baby was in. She came out with two broken bones. She could barely breathe because her lungs hadn't formed properly, and her hands, feet, and sweet little face were deformed. They had to give her a breathing tube. She could only eat through a tube and couldn't even let out a cry because of the pain she was in. In order for the doctors to put in a tracheotomy, which was needed, they would have to go into surgery. In that process, the doctors would have to tilt her head back to perform this surgery. If they were to do that, the way our daughter's spine had grown, they would have pinched a nerve, leaving her paralyzed for the rest of her life. My wife and I were devastated. Eleven days after she had been born, God took her home to Heaven. While it was hard, we knew she was free of pain and suffering. It gave us peace knowing that, but still left us in the midst of pain and suffering. Nothing could ever have prepared us for having to bury our daughter, empty her nursery of all her belongings, and pick out a headstone. But we had to do just that. The world didn't stop for us. Life was still going on for others, while ours stopped. We had to pick up the pieces of the mess we had endured.
Eight months later, guess what? My wife found out she was pregnant. We were still trying to heal, clean up the financial mess of it all, and go through therapy. But God knew what we needed. I'll be honest, we were scared. The whole pregnancy we were on edge, waiting for the doctor to tell us this baby wouldn't make it. But looking back, it was an absolutely perfect pregnancy. On December 23rd, 2019, my wife gave birth to our rainbow after the storm, Judah. His name means 'praise.' We wanted him to be our living reminder that no matter the circumstances or trials, praise would continually be in us. God gives and takes away, but there is purpose in it all.
We named our business '3JProServices' after our children—Jackson, Jordyn, and Judah. To serve as a reminder to ourselves that even after the storm we endured, there is still hope. While we lost our daughter, we gained our son. While we struggled to make ends meet during that time, we are still picking things up and trying to make a life for our family. Not only do we want to offer our services to our community, but we also want our story to carry over to give hope and connection to everyone we come in contact with.