A mom who turned to adoption after going into kidney failure during first childbirth has shared the emotional moment she was able to hold her adopted second baby for the first time. During the birth of her first child, Ann Marie Carney, 33, from Florence, Alabama, suffered from kidney failure, which saw her son, Greyson, born through emergency c-section at 30 weeks. The procedure saved Ann Marie’s life, but the recovery was very tough, she said, with her condition getting worse over the next few years. As a result, Ann Marie and her husband, Taylor, 33, carried out a lot of “soul searching” and settled on growing their family in a different way. The couple had always wanted a big family, and so they began looking into adoption, before taking the necessary steps. Then, in the summer of 2019, the couple found themselves waiting in a Florida hospital for their next child to be born. While sitting in the waiting room, Ann Marie and Taylor were called over by one of the nurses, who asked them to follow her.
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00:00This mom never thought she'd hold another child she could call her own.
00:04Ann's first son was born by an emergency C-section at just 30 weeks
00:09because doctors had to save her from kidney failure.
00:12And they said having more kids was out of the picture.
00:16That was hard for me to hear because I'm one of four kids
00:20and I always wanted a big family for myself.
00:22So it's like the whole, that whole decision always kind of felt taken away from me.
00:31But she and her husband Taylor didn't want to give up on their big family dreams.
00:37I think we both just had this mindset that we didn't know how we were going to have more kids
00:41but we knew that we were going to have one.
00:43And we explored other avenues doing that.
00:46One of those avenues was adoption.
00:50I didn't know what it was going to take to get through the adoption process
00:54or the correct way to adopt.
00:57And I didn't know how to do it.
00:59I didn't know what it looked like to be an adoptive parent.
01:02But all those worries disappeared when they finally met baby Isaiah.
01:11Hi guys.
01:12Hey.
01:13Would you guys like to meet your new baby?
01:16Here.
01:19Careful. He's super cute.
01:20Aw.
01:23Aw.
01:25Hi.
01:27Aw.
01:32Oh my gosh.
01:34Hello.
01:36You can't tell?
01:38How big, how big was he?
01:39He's 7'14".
01:41Aw.
01:437'14".
01:45Hey buddy! Oh, look at those eyes!
01:50It was one of the best moments of my life.
01:55Oh my gosh, he's perfect! He's so cute! He's so cute!
02:01Look at that face!
02:07Oh, I love you!
02:11It's kind of like what I imagined walking on water to be like
02:15because we had been living through these tiny little miracles to get to this
02:21point in the process and to meet this little boy
02:24and we've been praying over this mom and this family
02:28and it was like getting out of the boat and stepping on the water
02:32and it was overwhelming and ultimately the best decision I've ever
02:36made. And their family grew even bigger than
02:42they expected because we had a completely beautiful
02:47scenario because my son's birth mom loves him so much.
02:51He still keeps in touch with us. We still
02:55send updates. In the beginning, that to me felt like I was going to be
02:59co-parenting with a stranger which sounds crazy
03:04but it's not like that at all. She is family now.
03:08Later on, the family welcomed two foster children too
03:12and they told us it all changed their lives
03:15in a more beautiful way than they could have ever
03:19imagined. I never thought I was going to choose adoption but it was kidney
03:23failure ultimately that led us down that road and while I
03:28thought kidney failure to be this burden you
03:33know that it was awful to go through and the
03:35adoption experience was hard to go through
03:38but meeting your kid and having your baby you know you just do
03:43anything for your kids and um and I would do it all over again
03:47and I would and I'd again and again for all of them.