Young Mom Blessed with Quadruplets Only Weeks After Adopting 4 Foster Children

Maxine and Jake Young knew they wanted a big family to fill their house with love and laughter. While they wanted to have some biological children, Maxine had always been interested in fostering and adoption. She wanted the opportunity to give children born into difficult circumstances a chance at growing up in a loving family. They fostered four children, then had a child of their own. Just a couple of weeks after officially adopting their foster children, Maxine discovered she was pregnant again – with quadruplets. This is their story.

From 0 to 9 Kids – A Story That Starts With Adoption and Ends With Quadruplets

When Maxine and Jake Young decided they were ready to become parents, they found out that Maxine had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), making conceiving difficult. Maxine always knew she wanted to adopt, so though they continued to try to have a baby themselves, the couple began becoming foster parents. On July 28, 2017, they received a call about three siblings in need of a foster home. They were 4-year-old Aiden, 2-year-old Parker, and 11-month-old Connor. They agreed to take them in, and overnight they went from having zero kids to having three.

“We went from just me and Jake to parents of three overnight,” Maxine explained. “And then not even a month later, we got a call for their baby sister. She was in the NICU. So we picked her up … and went from zero to four in less than a month. It was great [and] definitely chaotic.” (1)

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Their First Biological Child

Six months later, the couple received exciting news: Maxine was pregnant! They had been trying to conceive using IVF, but sadly had experienced two miscarriages. The couple finally conceived their son Henry through IUI. Maxine recalls not being too excited initially because she had trouble believing she would successfully carry the baby to term. However, as she cleared 14 weeks, she began to get quite excited.

While Maxine was in the later stages of her pregnancy, they received word that their foster children’s biological parents’ rights were being revoked. This is because they were failing to show up to scheduled visits. Maxine and Jake now decided to continue fostering until they found another family to adopt the children or adopt them themselves.

That choice was easy

“Obviously, the goal of foster care is reunification, so you always try to support that — and we did — but it’s so hard because you fall in love with the kids,” Maxine says. “When all the visits stopped, it was basically like we were already a family, so we knew it was going to go to adoption.”

On December 20th, 2017, with their kids’ biological grandparents in attendance, the Young family officially adopted Aiden, Parker, Connor, and Elliot. Little did they know the surprise waiting for them around the corner.

Read More: ‘I just cried holding her’: Couple welcomes baby girl after 5-year adoption journey

From 5 to 9

Just a few weeks after they officially adopted their four foster children, Maxine had the shock of her life: She was pregnant with triplets. That surprise continued further when, another few weeks after that, the doctors told her that she wasn’t carrying triplets; in fact, she was actually carrying quadruplets. Maxine recalls being excited but nervous. It was considered a high-risk pregnancy, and for a mom who had already experienced two miscarriages, it was certainly stressful. All of this, on top of the reality of having four more babies on top of their five other children. 

“At first I was excited, but that quickly became nervousness,” she said. “The doctors made it seem like it would be impossible to have four healthy babies and wanted us to reduce. Once we accepted that it would be risky, we felt joy come back. All four of our babies were healthy. I’m so glad we went with our gut.” (2)

At 21 weeks, Doctors realized that Maxine’s cervix was shortening

A specialist advised them that the only thing they could do was for Maxine to undergo a cerclage and deliver the babies via C-section. Both procedures occurred on July 31, 2018. The babies spent some time in the NICU due to their prematurity, from where the couple was able to bring each baby home one by one.

“Having a baby in the NICU is really hard … but we try to look at it as a blessing that I was able to recover, that we could come home and adjust and bond with our other kids again, before bringing all the babies home,” Maxine said.

Adjusting To A Big Family

Having nine young children is a challenge under any circumstances. This challenge was then increased due to the global pandemic and having everyone at home. Though their lives are chaotic, they say it is also full of everything they always wanted it to be: Love and laughter.

“It’s definitely chaotic and it’s definitely beautiful. Seeing our older kids hold the babies is definitely beautiful, but also it’s chaotic. And with COVID, we have all of the kids home … [and] have to do online schooling with them,” Maxine explains. “But I think that we make it work, and Jake and I always say everyone’s struggles are relative. People struggle with one child, and people struggle with two children, but we’ve only known the chaos of a large family. We went from zero to four, so we just make it work.”

“I’m one of two, and Maxine is one of three. So it’s not like we have this experience of having a large family and know what that’s like. But here we are!” added her husband, Jake. You can follow along with the Young family on Maxine’s Instagram as well as the family’s YouTube channel.

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