Firefighter adopts baby girl he delivers on emergency call-out

A firefighter who had to deliver a baby during an emergency call out has now adopted the little girl.

Fireman, Marc Hadden,  realised there was no time to get the baby's biological mother to the hospital when he responded to the emergency call.

So he took matters into his own hands and he helped the mother deliver the baby safely and little Grace came into the world as a shock to her family.

Little Grace was immediately put up for adoption by the mother and it was then he and his wife Beth decided to step in and adopt the little gir.

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. 

Says Marc: 'We had it in our minds and in our hearts for years to adopt and we just left it in God's hands. We said if it's meant to be, it will be.'

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.”