Maxine and Jake Young of Berks County, Pennsylvania, welcomed a son named Henry in December 2019, and they now have nine children under the age of ten after adopting four and welcoming quadruplets.
Following the adoption, the couple decided to try for another child – but they got a big ss when Maxine became P with four children, making them a family of 11 in just three years.
When the couple married in May 2016, they knew they wanted to start a family right away.
“Maxine has always wanted to be a foster parent and has always dreamed of having a large family with adopted and biological children,” Jake explained. I was completely on board and loved the idea of having a home full of love, laughter, and maybe even a little chaos!”
They do, however, have a little more love and chaos than they anticipated.
On July 28, 2017, the couple completed their adoptive parenting training and adopted three siblings. The children were four, two, and eleven months old at the time, and they were reassigned a month later. A fourth sibling, an infant G, entered.
“We were trying to get a child into our family at the time,” Maxine explained. I had multiple miscarriages, a chemical pregnancy, and one round of IVF and IUI before giving birth to our son, Henry, in October 2018.”
On December 20, 2019, just a year after Henry was born, the couple officially adopted the four siblings they are raising.
Maxine said: “It was chaotic. We went from zero to five in less than a year.”
The couple thought their family of seven was complete, but Maxine realized she was P again just weeks after finalizing the adoption – this time, without even employing any in vitro fertilization.
Maxine said: “I didn’t even think I could get Pʀᴇɢɴᴀɴᴛ without IVF or IUI, the things we have to do with our son. I remember texting my husband and saying, ‘Wow! Oh my God,”
And then they were on the moon knowing Maxine was expecting four, not one.
Silas Ledger, Theo Alexander, Beck can, and Cecilia Hudson, weighing 3 to 4 pounds, were born at 32 weeks to the couple.
Jake said: “Fortunately, they all did a great job and we are really grateful.
Meeting babies is an indescribable moment. All the hardships of the past few months were immediately forgotten, the pain and stress didn’t matter, in that moment everything we went through was worth it.”
