(USA)
A firefighter has made headlines after revealing the story of
how he adopted the baby girl after delivering her in an emergency
and saving her life.
On 14 November 2011, Marc Hadden was called to an emergency with
a woman experiencing abdominal pain.
Before he knew it, Marc was delivering a baby girl, who was
immediately put up for adoption after the birth mother said she
couldn’t care for the infant.
And just 48 hours later, Hadden brought the baby home as his
daughter.
Marc, now 48, and his wife Beth, 39, already had two sons (who
are now 15 and 13) but after having complications with the first
two pregnancies, the couple had been hoping to adopt a third child
for years.
The birth mother was a single mum struggling to raise a teenage
son by herself. And when Beth learned this, she decided to go and
visit her in hospital the day after the baby was born.
When it came to start the adoption procedure, the mother said
she didn’t want to give the baby to someone she’d never met.
“Suddenly the opportunity was there for me to say that Marc and
I had been praying about adoption for years,” Beth told
People.
“And she looked over at me and said, ‘I want you to adopt my
baby.’ She had the nurse bring her in and I was able to hold Gracie
for the first time. I called Marc and said, ‘I think we just had a
baby.’”
The couple signed temporary custody papers that day and brought
their new daughter home just 48 hours after she was born.
Beth and Marc never hid the story of Gracie’s birth from her -
they even took her back to the ambulance where she was born.
For the family, it was a case of being in the right place at the
right time.
“She is what we prayed for,” says Beth. “It felt like winning
the lottery.”
Gracie, now six, even likes to tell people the story of how she
was born, with her father delivering her and helping her take her
first breath.
“I never envisaged having a daughter,” Marc said. “We are truly
blessed, for sure.”