30. Marriage Ended, New Life Began
A woman’s life was about to change when she got divorced in her early 30s. Instead of being desperate her dream of having a family was no longer possible, she found a solution and began truly to live her live to the full. Katie Page decided to move across the country, where she landed a job, bought her house and was a new woman. But something was missing. It was her dream to become a mother, so she decided to become a foster parent.
Her decision changed not only her life, but also the life of two children she raised. Let’s see her story that has gone viral around the world. Page felt lost, realizing she was in her mid-thirties, divorced, and childless. She had to prepare for a new path in her life, but she never imagined that she would get her perfect family just after a few years. As she started her life over, she did some soul-searching before relocating from Alabama to Denver.
Katie got a job at a commercial construction company, working as an integrated service manager. In the meantime, she bought a four-bedroom home that needed a lot of renovation, she said: “The house I bought would require extensive work to transform into my vision and most of which I would have to do myself in order to afford it.” She bought that home for more than herself.
And she’d soon find out that she needed all those bedrooms!
The woman kept busy with the home renovation, but ultimately, she was aware that she was all by herself. While her marriage ended, she still had many opportunities to take. Katie was motivated by the work on her house, but it didn’t satisfy her.
She was changing her life, so one idea popped into place: what if she would foster children? The house was big enough, and it would help her adopt a child in the future…
Katie joined the community church and found out in a letter from the church that they had a seminar where they would talk about a program for fostering children. It was all falling into place.
It was the right path for her, and the thought of her becoming a foster parent was making her equally nervous and happy. She filled out an application on Mother’s Day, hoping for the best.
After her application was processed, Katie began fostering children. In just a year, she fostered four kids. She was ready to adopt one, since she began fostering children for that reason.
As she had made this big decision, she told her caseworker about it. Just two weeks after that, she received a call about a baby that was abandoned at a nearby hospital. This little baby was four days old.
Katie didn’t need time to think. She said she’ll foster him, and in 24 hours, she took the newborn home. In that period, Katie was already fostering a 14-month infant, but she had no experience with newborns.
She took care of the two, making sure that Baby Boy (she didn’t pick a name yet) got all the love and attention he needed. A few days later, she named him Grayson.
Katie was a natural at parenting, and as she cared for little Grayson, she realized she wanted to become his mother. Caseworkers searched for the birth mother for 11 months, while Katie raised him.
No information was found on the boy’s parents, even though the hospital and newspapers were filled with inquiries about them. That’s when Katie learned the great news!
It was on May 2017 when Katie became Grayson’s mom! She didn’t want to give up on fostering children, but was willing to do it after Grayson got at least one year and a half old.
You see, the little boy had been exposed to drugs while in the womb, and had some physical and developmental issues.
Katie wanted to expand her family and adopt a second child, but it still wasn’t the right time. She kept her home open for emergency placement.
Her son needed her full attention, though. But when Grayson turned 12 months, Katie got a call that would change her and Grayson’s lives forever!
The happy mother received a call from the caseworker she was in touch with. It was a newborn baby girl, abandoned just like Grayson.
Her name was Hannah, and she was all alone in the hospital. It was the same hospital she took Grayson from, and little Hanna had the same health issues as the boy, both being exposed to drugs while in the womb.
It was like a Déjà vu, said Katie: “Over the next 10 minutes and subsequent phone calls I made that afternoon, the phrase ‘I know I am crazy, but God is telling me to say YES’ kept coming out of my mouth.” That’s when she began connecting the missing pieces…
The little girl was brought to Katie’s home. On Hanna’s bracelet, Katie noticed there was the same name she saw on Grayson’s bracelet.
The woman then looked at the newborn’s discharge papers and saw that the birth mom’s birth date was exactly as Grayson’s birth mom. Add the medical conditions from drug exposure, the same story of the kids being abandoned, and Katie realized she adopted the brother and was fostering the sister… Was she correct?
“Grayson is half African American with beautiful darker skin and dark curly hair,” Katie wrote on her blog. “Baby Girl has a pale white skin tone with straight red-blonde hair,” shared Katie in a blog post.
However, the kids could have different fathers… And there were more differences in the papers…
In Grayson’s papers, Katie saw that the birth mother’s last name was different. She also had her date of birth off by a day from Hannah’s mother. The foster mom decided to call the social worker and ask more about this issue.
Could the kids be siblings? The answer from the worker was that it wasn’t likely the two were related. Maybe it was just a coincidence…
The only way Katie would be certain was by contacting the mother. After months of searching, Katie finally tracked down Hannah’s birth mother.
When she met the woman, Katie realized she was looking at Grayson’s mom. She had a conversation with the woman, and slowly added a question that would confirm Katie’s suspicions!
The woman’s features were strikingly similar to Grayson’s! The mother said that she gave birth to a boy before Hannah, and gave him up with no records.
Katie learned that the woman had one more children, including a baby boy that was not reported to the county. After their meeting, Katie called the social worker…
The social worker looked at the two children’s papers and saw that Grayson’s birth mother’s last name was the last name of a relative of Hannah’s . A DNA test confirmed that Grayson and Hanna were indeed siblings. In her blog post, Katie said she was shocked: “What if the baby girl had gone to another family?
We would have never found her or Grayson’s mother. The connection would have never been made! I could not believe the miracle that had just happened.”
It was obvious that the next step was to adopt Hannah, so that the biological siblings can grow up in the same home and never get separated again. On December 29, 2018, Katie took Grayson and Hannah to the courtroom for a hearing to make their family official. Katie now had two babies.
But this was definitely not the end of Katie’s adopting journey. One day, she got a call…
Katie now had a beautiful family. She couldn’t believe she went through such a strange story which helped two siblings find a home and stay together. “I was happy to just give Grayson a life, and I thought that that was big, but I didn’t feel like that was enough.
So to give him a sister, I couldn’t imagine anything better,” said Katie. But her crazy story of becoming a mother is far from being over!
In an interview with People Magazine, Katie said that her children “were meant to find each other, that’s pretty clear. I think God intended that from the beginning.
If they weren’t related, Hannah would not have stayed with our family. She would have been placed with other relatives.” Then, Katie received a new phone call…
After Hannah turned 13 months, the adoption agency called Katie and told her something that shocked her.
This phone call would again change Katie’s life and her children’s lives as well!
Grayson and Hanna’s mother had again gave birth to a baby and she wanted to let Katie know about it. Was the mother of two ready for a third child?
Katie didn’t plan to become the mother of three, but she didn’t have the heart to leave the baby boy without a home. Katie knew she had to do everything in her power to reunite the siblings.
Katie rushed to the hospital, took the newborn in and began her third adoption process. The third baby was named Jackson.
On her social media, Katie shared her entire life story and cute photos of her three babies.
Jackson fit right in with his brother and sister. Katie posted on her Instagram photos of them (hiding Jackson’s face with a heart, since she wasn’t yet his legal parent).
Then, she announced on June 9, 2019, that they have a court date to begin the adoption process!
Katie’s story became viral, which is why she kept Jackson’s and her other two children’s privacies. The three kids live a beautiful life with their mom.
Hanna loves caring for her baby brother and said she want to be like Katie. Grayson is now three and ready to go to preschool!
More recently, Katie revealed on social media that her family just got bigger: “While I can’t share his face as I vowed never to post him on social media so I could get him to take a photo with me, I can share how grateful I am for him.”
Katie’s mystery man has been by her side for the past year, sharing in the crazy fostering and adopting phase, which means he’s a keeper!
We’re happy Katie got all her dreams come true!
While caring for the babies, Katie has had an amazing support from her mother, sister and roommate. This way, she could keep her full-time job as well.
In between raising the kids, Katie has also worked on renovating her home.
Katie is now a small entrepreneur, owning a website called woodandgrace.net and working as a consultant for Rodan and Fields skincare company.
She switched from her job at the construction company to have more time with the kids.
“I am hopeful that one day this opportunity will give me the chance at the freedom to spend more time with my children and one day expand our family even more. My current traditional career path doesn’t make my dreams seem possible… so I began to consider ways to supplement that complimented my lifestyle and was flexible,” she said.
She is also planning on hiring a live-in nanny to make sure the kids are getting all the attention they need. Now, she is waiting for the adoption to be official for little Jackson to join her family!