When Jilliane Smyl was young, her mother would always tell her “I prayed for you, I prayed for you.”
“Obviously God is the one who brought us together,” Jilliane said of her mother, Sue deMoissac. And through the trials that have come her way, Jilliane has found strength in her mother’s positive attitude. “Even in my times of need, she always said that, ‘I pray for you, I pray for you.’”
“She always puts things into perspective. That just kept me sane. I knew no matter what, she was there, always.”
Sue’s home is another home to Jilliane’s children now, with a playhouse, children’s books, a trampoline and even miniature putting greens that she says with a smile is “for my big kid,” her husband Pierre.
She is a mom to many, including her own children Jilliane and Stefan, with an adventurous attitude that sees the trim and youthful “grandmaman” taking up hula hoop and exercise classes to keep up with the next generation.
“I want to be the grandma that can go jump on the trampoline,” she said with a grin.
Sue and Pierre hadn’t discussed kids much before their wedding day, but on that day, Pierre, the 11th son of 14 children, stood up and said of having kids - “I want to be half as good as my dad.”
Sue was flabbergasted. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, seven kids!’”
She loved children, but her husband is and has always been a “kid magnet,” she said. But as it turned out, Sue was unable to have biological children.
“That was tough – your husband wants seven kids and you can’t have kids,” she said, recalling she told her husband it was an “out” of the marriage if he wanted it. But Pierre waved her off. “He was just like ‘We can adopt.’ To him, it didn’t matter.”
The couple got on the adoption list through social services, and almost seven years of being married, and five of trying to have a baby, they got the call on March 22, 1985, that there was an 11-day-old baby girl waiting for them.
That night, the couple hardly slept from excitement. Aside from explaining to Sue’s boss why she had to leave the next day for the city, the couple didn’t tell anyone about the call.
“We were so bad,” Sue giggled. “We wanted to surprise everyone.”
Up until that point, Sue said she had been too scared to hope for that call and for bringing a baby home to go and get baby items, saying, “You’re so scared of being heartbroken again.”
She and Pierre only had a crib in their home, so they did a one-hour power shop, for car seats, formula, clothes and everything else they thought they might need, before they went to pick up their baby at 11 a.m. that morning.
When she saw Jilliane and Stefan for the first time, Sue said she imagined it was no different than any other first-time parent meeting their child. “It was just amazing that they were going to be ours.”
The giddy new parents brought Jilliane home to meet their large, extended family, ready to give them all a big shock. Sue recalled how Pierre walked in to see his mother, with a mini-sleeping bag in his hands.
“Mom, are you sitting down?” he called to his mother, carrying the sleeping bag like a pillow. When he peeled back the sleeping bag to show his mother her newest granddaughter, she freaked out, recalled Sue, laughing.
She left work and dedicated herself to being home with her two children, saying, “I waited so long for those kids and I wanted to be the one that raised them.”
“You get married and you love someone. You think that’s your whole world,” she said, adding she could never believe she could love anyone as much. But when she welcomed children to her home, she was amazed to find that her world of love could expand to hold more. “There’s always room for more.”
And when she had her first grandchildren, she found her heart could expand yet again. However, the family’s journey to introducing the smallest members of their clan was no easy one.
“When Jilliane had her first one, we almost lost her,” Sue says, her voice shaky. “I still get emotional.”
Jilliane had gone into labour and was ready to deliver in Bonnyville hospital.
“All of a sudden, she started spitting blood,” she said, recalling that Jilliane’s heart failed and she had to have an emergency cesarean-section. She was sent to Edmonton, where doctors put her into a medically-induced coma. Sue and Pierre rushed to be by their daughter’s side, while Brielle stayed with first her father, and then her mother-in-law, in Bonnyville hospital for monitoring.
The next few days were terrifying for Jilliane’s parents, who had no idea if their daughter would wake up with brain damage or not be able to walk.
“When they were little and sick, I would always stroke their foreheads,” Sue said of her children. But now, whenever she would try to stroke Jilliane’s head, her heart monitor would go crazy, so contact was restricted. “I couldn’t even hold her hand. It was so hard.”
When doctors finally brought her out of her coma, Jilliane was disoriented, but was able to communicate by writing. The doctors felt Jilliane needed to be connected with her daughter, saying, “She needs to see her baby so she can heal.”
“I think Jilliane was really worried about not bonding with her,” Sue remembered. “She said, ‘She’s not going to know who I am.’”
Sue firmly told her that Brielle would know and when Brielle came to Edmonton the next day to be by her mother’s side, the moment clicked.
“When we placed her on Jilliane, I said, ‘Talk to her,’” Sue recalled. As soon as Jilliane began talking to her baby girl, “Brielle turned her head toward her and I said, ‘Oh my God.’ It was amazing.”
Watching Jilliane and her son-in-law Kyle bond with their new baby was precious for the new grandmother. While Sue tried to make herself scarce during the day to give the parents their time and space together, she saw them every day growing together as a family.
“Jilliane being sick changed my whole outlook on life,” Sue said. She became focused on her family, and she quit work shortly after, to give herself more time with them and to have Friday “grandma days” with Brielle.
But the family would have one more hurdle to cross when Jilliane decided she wanted to have another baby. When her family expressed reservations, Jilliane had no fear.
“Again? As if it’s going to happen two times in a row,” she said, adding she joked at the time that even if she was to get sick again, “Obviously I can come out of it just fine.”
But given how traumatic the first birthing experience was, Sue was scared for her daughter.
“When she said she was ready tor another one, it was like - ” and Sue takes a deep breath and puts her hands out as if to brace herself.
Everything went fine with the pregnancy, and little Tessa came into the world without fuss, but was later hospitalized and sent to Edmonton when she was diagnosed with meningitis. The family was once again plunged into the fear that comes of having a sick child, but once again, Sue was there every step of the way.
In the midst of the confusion and disruption, Brielle would demand to know where her baby was, and was asking for her mother. Without waiting to be asked, Sue stepped in to go to Edmonton to care for her youngest granddaughter in hospital, sending Jilliane home to be with Brielle for a while.
Now, both girls are happy and healthy, and still enjoy those precious grandma days with Sue.
Jilliane has never sought out her birth mother, saying of Sue, “To me, she just simply is my mom. There’s nothing missing in my life . . . She’s everything I could ever dream of.”
But Sue has kept in contact with Stefan’s birth mother, sending her pictures over the years and getting back pictures of his other siblings along the way.
It ended up providing a really rewarding experience for her as well.
“We knew he loved us, but he never vocalized it,” she said of her son, now 24, noting as a teenager and as a younger man, he was reserved in expressing his emotions. A few years ago, though, Stefan’s birth mother sent Sue a message telling her how he had told her how much he loved his parents and how happy his childhood had been.
In that moment, Sue could see her son’s love for her and his father, and she cried. “It was really touching to see that part of it.”
And even though Jilliane isn’t curious about her birth parents, Sue says she is curious about her daughter’s birth mother and her health history, wondering if it would explain why she had come so close to losing Jilliane. But more than that, she would want to express her gratitude.
“I would love to tell her, ‘Thank you.’ They gave us such a gift.”
