For a long time, Maxine and Jacob Young thought they would never be able to have children. However, Maxine fell pregnant again, the second time with quadruplets, after adopting a full family of siblings. According to Maxine, “We were hoped for another baby to complete the family.”
Maxine Lee and Jacob Young first met in 2013 in Pennsylvania, and it wasn’t long before the two were a couple. After 2.5 years together, Jacob proposes during a trip to Greece, and later they fly back with their families to get married in the beautiful country as well. After the wedding, the young couple decides to start trying to have children as soon as possible. But that turned out to be easier said than done – after two years of trying, Maxine still hadn’t been able to ᴄᴏɴᴄᴇɪᴠᴇ, and the married couple felt ᴅᴇᴠᴀsᴛᴀᴛᴇᴅ.
“Unless you’ve experienced ɪɴꜰᴇʀᴛɪʟɪᴛʏ… you can never understand the magnitude of how much it affects a person. It’s a sɪɴᴋʜᴏʟᴇ, you fall into darkness and sometimes it feels like you’ll never get up,” Maxine has candidly shared on Instagram, where you can follow the family.
The couple does not give up on becoming biological parents, but at the same time begins to look around for other options and sets out to become foster parents. After taking the necessary courses, they were able to be approved as a foster family within a few months, and quite quickly after that they were asked to take care of two siblings, which they gladly did. Not long after, the question of bringing in their third sibling also came up.
“I said ‘yes, we will,’ without even asking Jake. It was very overwhelming. Going from zero to three kids is a lot, but they had already been through so much and ʟᴏsᴛ so much that I didn’t want to separate them.”
After taking care of the three siblings for a period of time, the next phone call comes: Can the couple take in their little sister too? “We said yes to their little sister and it’s one of the best yeses I’ve said in my life,” writes Maxine. Unsure how long they would be able to keep the beloved set of siblings they were now foster parents to, the couple continued to try to have biological children as well. And finally they succeeded – Maxine was pregnant. In October 2018, son Henry Ellis was born, and he was immediately loved by both his parents and his foster siblings.
Maxine and Jacob had five children in a short period of time.
“Adding another little one to the mix has been challenging but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world,” explains Maxine on Instagram.
Even though they now had a biological child, they did not want to let go of the group of siblings they raised, and after the parents stopped showing up at the meetings, it was finally clear in December 2019 – they had to adopt the children.
After that, life took an unexpected turn. Shortly after the adoption, it turns out that Maxine is pregnant again. She and her husband have dreamed of having another small baby to complete the large family with. But it will be a little more than that. At the doctor’s, the couple gets the news that Maxine is pregnant with quadruplets.
“We were hoping for another baby to complete the family, and our prayer was answered four times over,” she writes.
After a complicated, high-ʀɪsᴋ pregnancy, the four children were born by ᴄᴀᴇsᴀʀᴇᴀɴ sᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ in July 2020. However, they had to be cared for in the ɪɴᴛᴇɴsɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴀʀᴇ ᴜɴɪᴛ for a period, when they were born with ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴs and way too early. In September, two months after the birth, all the children were allowed to come home.
With nine children in three years, the family now has a lot to stand on, but they wouldn’t want it any other way either.
“It didn’t turn out the way we had planned. We didn’t plan to have this big of a family. But it seems these kids were meant to be.”
