Lifelong friends are rare in this world, but the friendship of Jamie Lucas and Kim Bourland is even more uncommon.
The two met in fifth grade and grew up close friends in McKinney and dated fellow friends, Casey Lucas and Blake Bourland.
After college, both couples married and began to grow their families.
Kim & Blake welcomed a daughter, then a son. Soon, Jamie and Casey learned they had a little one on the way.
“We were excited, so excited,” said Casey Lucas.
But at eight weeks – the couple lost the child.
“We were told it was just a fluke,” said Jamie Lucas.
Over the next two years, despite fertility treatments and in vitro fertilization, multiple medical issues would cause the couple to lose three more pregnancies.
On the day they learned surrogacy would be their last option to have a biological child – before they told anyone – they got an unexpected offer.
“It just hit me,” said Kim Bourland. “It just hit me. It was unexplainable. I felt like someone was telling me, ‘Kim hold on. You’re going to be involved in this. You’re going to play a part in this. There’s something big for you here.’”
Kim insisted she carry her best friend’s baby.
“The really beautiful thing is God was working with me and she didn’t even know it,” said Kim. “She didn’t even know God was in my heart working.”
“I think that’s everything,” said Jamie. “When you’re going through miscarriages and fertility and you’re so alone – you just think, ‘Is God looking out for me? What is the point of all of this?’ And to know that he was working, that’s what faith is all about.”
Within weeks, the Lucas’ remaining embryos were transferred to Kim and soon all four friends had an announcement.
Kim was pregnant with the Lucas’ baby.
“I love when good things happen to good people,” said Kim’s husband, Blake. “And Casey and Jamie are great people.”
Nine months later, all four friends walked into Baylor Medical Center at McKinney.
Casey clutched Kim’s hand as she gave birth to Savannah Joan Lucas.
Kim hugged the baby before placing her in Jamie’s arms.
“She was out before we knew it and they laid her on my chest and it was just, it was just crazy. It was the best day ever,” said Jamie. “They will never know how thankful we are, no they will never know.”
The Lucas’ say one day little Savannah will learn the story of how faith turned friendship into family.
“Now that we have her in our lives, it’s life-long,” said Kim. “We’re connected forever. We are really now a family in our own little way.”
