By Donna Lampkin Stephens
Christmas will be more special than ever for Monty and Shonda Smith of Conway this year. In a span of just a few weeks in 2008, they experienced deep lows and extreme highs. They faced life-threatening triple bypass surgery for Monty in April, followed by months of rehab. But on the eve of their 14th wedding anniversary in early July, they received the phone call they’d been waiting years for — Bethany Christian Services called to tell them they’d been selected by a birthmother to be her child’s adoptive parents.
“They asked what we were doing for lunch the next day, which was July 2, our anniversary,” Monty said. “To be honest, my wife was going to have lunch with some of her friends, and I was going to be with some of my former players. They said, ‘Do you think you can cancel those plans and instead have lunch with your birthmother?’
“I was fixing spaghetti and didn’t have an anniversary card, so I went to Kroger and brought one back and wrote, ‘I hope you can cancel your plans tomorrow, Mom.’ So on our anniversary, we met this woman who was going to be giving us her baby.”
Carter Wilson Smith arrived about a month later.
Heading into the holidays, Monty is contemplative about 2008.
“Just how much I’ve been blessed by God,” he said when asked to sum up the year. “In a lot of ways, this was the hardest year I’ve ever gone through, but it’s also been the most blessed. I don’t ever want to go through it again, but yet I would.”
Shonda expects a lot of emotion during the holidays.
“We went to visit Santa and I could’ve cried,” she said. “Everything that we ever wanted has come to be, and it feels like this is how it was always supposed to be.
“If God told me today I could have a baby but I’d have to give up Carter, I’d say no. We have him and he’s perfect.
“It’ll be an emotional Christmas.”

GROWING UP
Monty grew up in Yellville and earned a degree in mass communication from the University of Central Arkansas in 1994. Shonda had grown up seven miles from him in Flippin, but the two didn’t meet until they got to UCA. She majored in art education; they married in 1994.
Monty broadcast UCA women’s basketball games for the campus television station, Channel 6, from 1991-94 and picked up the coaching bug from former Sugar Bear coach Ron Marvel. After graduation, he dabbled in his field some before deciding to return to UCA to get his teaching certification. His first teaching job was at Conway Christian; Shonda took a job teaching art at Pulaski Academy in Little Rock.
After six years coaching girls basketball and volleyball and serving as athletic director at Conway Christian, Monty went to Episcopal. Shonda moved to Ellen Smith Elementary in Conway that year as gifted and talented teacher.
Although basketball was king at Conway Christian, Monty has developed the volleyball program at Episcopal over the last six years into a perennial state tournament team. The Lady Wildcats finished 17-5 overall in 2008, running through the 3A-South schedule a perfect 10-0. He has been chosen conference Coach of the Year the last three seasons.
“Episcopal is a program that when I got there had won seven basketball games in four years, and my first year we went 10-14. I was so mad because it was the first losing season I’d ever had, but the girls were as excited as they’d ever been in their life. It put it all in perspective.”
There were also a few adjustments to be made after he replaced a well-loved coach. When his freshman volleyball team won the district tournament his first season, he was named Coach of the Year.
“The girls didn’t like me as much as the other one, and when I was named Coach of the Year, they just stared at me,” he remembered. “But when that group was seniors and we won the conference, they gave me the Coach of the Year award. It was a tough beginning, but it grew into a pretty special bond.”

HEART PROBLEMS
That bond was tested by adversity in April.
Monty has a family history of heart disease, but nothing indicated a problem for a man in his mid-30s. He is assistant softball coach, and the night before the Lady Wildcats were to play in the district tournament, he felt chest pains.
“I thought it was indigestion, but it wouldn’t go away, so my wife took me to the emergency room,” he said. “They did an EKG, which was normal, so they sent me home. The next night I had the pains again, so I went back in and they kept me that night.”
Shonda admitted to being annoyed the first time.
“I was like, ‘Come on, have you taken a Tums? What did you eat? Why did you do that?’” she remembered. “The second night, I was a little more scared.”
The following morning he had an angiogram, and the doctor came in and told the couple Monty would be having triple bypass surgery.
“It was very surreal to me,” Monty said. “I just started laughing and said, ‘Well, school’s out in a month.’ And they said, ‘No, it’s going to be Thursday.’ I said, ‘So I’ll tell the school I’ll be out a week or so,’ and they said, ‘No, you’re done for the year.’
“The first thing I asked the doctor was, ‘How did I do this to myself?’ And he said, ‘Unless you’ve smoked crack for 37 years, you didn’t do this.’ It was genetic.”
Dr. E.J. Chauvin performed the surgery at Conway Regional Medical Center. Shonda remembers being in the waiting area surrounded by family.
“I was really at peace with everything,” she said. “I knew he had a really good surgeon. We were just exhausted at that point. The worst time was when we went in to see him. That was awful, the moment when it really kind of hit what had happened.”
His volleyball players remember the worry.
“I was just scared when I found out,” senior Amelia Ray said. “The first thing I did was get in touch with him to see how he was doing and talk to the rest of my team to gather our thoughts about it. We sent him cards and texted him and made sure he knew we’re all here for him while he was in the hospital.”
Meghan Miros, a junior, said the coach’s surgery was the first time many of her teammates had faced a life-threatening health situation.
“I’d think about what’s going to go on, next volleyball season, what if he’s not able to coach us?
What if he’s not able to go on?” she remembered.
Monty remembers the recovery.
“I would walk three steps and feel like I just ran the Boston Marathon,” he said. “Any time I wanted to sneeze or cough I’d hold my breath as long as possible. You feel worthless around the house — you can’t mow the lawn or do anything.
“I felt bad that when I first got home. I told my wife I’d put away the laundry; I think I folded three towels and then slept for four hours.”
Although some doctors say it can take a year to recover from such heart surgery, Monty said in October he thought he was pretty well over it.
“Energy was the big thing, and it still is some,” he said, praising the Conway Regional heart surgery, post-op and cardiac rehabilitation services. “Now I eat better. I gave up the hardest thing in the world, Cokes, and switched to Diet Coke. I lost 30 pounds.”
Susan Langford, Episcopal’s assistant volleyball coach, has been amazed by Monty’s response to adversity.
“He’s gone through a whole lot and held up probably better than about anybody I can imagine,” she said. “His sheer fight to recover from heart surgery was absolutely phenomenal.”
By the time school started, Monty was almost back to full strength.
Monty will return for checkups every six months, but doctors told him the surgery would last 15 to 20 years. “I’m trying to do everything to at least keep it to 20,” he said.

A FAMILY
The Smiths had been trying to start a family for about seven years when they received the call from the adoption agency.
Monty’s recent health problems weighed on him, but not on Shonda.
“I was scared about how much would I be able to do,” he said. “I hadn’t recovered completely after two and a half months; how much would I be able to participate?”
Bethany Christian Services has potential adoptive families prepare an album for birthmothers to use to help them make their choice, and the Smiths’ album helped the 35-year-old birthmother make her decision.
“She had a 14-year-old daughter and a sister and her mother, and they all picked us together,” Monty said. “We had lunch with them the next day after the phone call. Shonda said going in she wasn’t going to cry. She had wanted to look at the sonogram, but she didn’t think she’d get the chance, but when the woman came in, Shonda went to shake her hand and the woman handed her the first sonograms. Shonda lost it.”
The birthmother told the Smiths she wanted them there when the baby was born. The call came in the late evening hours of Aug. 3; they arrived at the hospital in West Memphis at 2:10 a.m. on Aug. 4; Carter was born at 2:22.
“At 2:30 the door opened and they told us, ‘It’s time to meet your son,’” Monty remembered. “They set us up a room in the hospital, and we’ve had him ever since then.”
Although Carter is an only child, he has plenty of people watching out for him.
“My volleyball team has adopted him as their own,” Monty said. “They threw a shower for me that just blew my mind.”

LIFE CHANGES
Shonda said Carter’s arrival has changed the couple.
“I think it made us realize that we’re responsible for somebody else,” she said. “We’d been selfish for so many years. It was all about us — if we wanted to take a nap, we’d take a nap; if we wanted to go shopping, we’d go shopping; if we wanted to go out to eat, we’d go out to eat.
“It’s changed our focus. Our focus is completely on Carter and not on us anymore.”
Susan said determination and love helped her coaching colleague meet his rehabilitation goals following his surgery.
“His love for these girls is absolutely amazing,” she said. “I can’t imagine coaching with anybody else. He is the epitome of not only determination, but heart. His heart is just huge. His loyalty to these girls is absolutely phenomenal. When they walk in his room, no matter what he’s doing, he drops it to talk to them.”
According to Amelia, the Lady Wildcats are wild about the new member of the family and what he represents.
“It shows the blessing in disguise,” she said. “(Coach Smith) got this better thing out of the whole terrible situation. Like my mom says, ‘If God closes one door, he opens a window.’
“He survived so he could have this baby. That’s how we see it.”