Firefighter adopts baby girl after saving her life

'She is what we prayed for. It felt like winning the lottery'

Marc Hadden and daughter Gracie (Facebook)

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.”