Maxine and Jake Young recently welcomed quadruplets—making them a family of 11.
The couple, who reside in Reading, Pennsylvania, have a 23-month-old biological son, Henry, and adopted the siblings in December 2019. Weeks later they found out Maxine was pregnant with quadruplets.
“I was in total shock,” Maxine told Today Parents , explaining that she has POS and the couple used Intrauterine Insemination. (IUI) to conceive Henry. “I didn’t think I could get pregnant without help. Boy was I wrong!”
The quadruplets, Theo, Silas, Beck and Cecilia were born July 31 and joined their older siblings, Aiden, 8, Parker, 5, Connor, 4, Elliott, 3, and Henry, 2.
“Luckily Jake and my relationship thrives on chaos. We work having a lot of kids. We just do,” Maxine told the outlet. She and Jake began fostering in July 2017 after having been married for a year. Soon after they found out the three siblings had a new baby sister and took her in, as well.
"I wanted to keep them all together. They’d been through so much already,” Maxine said, adding that when reunification with the parents didn’t seem like a possibility, they considered adopting the siblings. “Their Christmas wish was that they could be adopted by Christmas,” Maxine said, adding that despite the courts being backed up, the couple was able to adopt the four kids on December 20 with the blessing and presence of the kids’ biological grandparents.
“We’re really close with them. That’s a really important connection. They’ll be able to ask questions that we might not have the answer to,” she explained. “We’re so grateful they have that biological link.”
She continued, “It’s actually a lot easier than I thought it was gonna be. There were times I was really paranoid and worried, like, ‘How are we going to do this?’”
However, seeing how attached the kids are with their new siblings has really helped. “They want to hold the babies all day long," Maxine told the outlet. “Life is pretty beautiful."
