A South Carolina girl is thriving five years after a firefighter delivered her on an emergency call and decided to adopt her.
The story of Marc Hadden and the baby girl was originally shared by WMBF in 2012.
Marc’s wife, Beth, said she will never forget the November 2011 night she got an excited call from her husband after delivering the baby.
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“He called me and he was ecstatic. I mean, he delivered a baby, and who in the world gets to deliver a baby in their lifetime that’s not a doctor?” Beth said.
Shortly afterward, the Haddens, who have two sons, learned that the baby girl had been put up for adoption. The family took it as a sign.
“Ever since we had the boys, we knew that we wanted more children,” Beth said. “But I was pre-term with them, so we knew that it wasn’t possible to have anymore babies. And 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.”
Just 48 hours later, Marc and the baby were reunited, this time as father and daughter. Her new parents named her Rebecca Grace and decided to call her by her middle name.
“I don’t know if I have words. I never envisioned that I would have a daughter. We are truly blessed, for sure,” Marc said.
He added: “I don’t even think about her being adopted. She’s ours and we love her."
According to "Today," Grace, now 5, takes gymnastics and will start kindergarten this year. Beth, a teacher, works at the school that Grace will attend.
"The boys absolutely love her, and she loves them," Marc told "Today."
"We have never hidden it from her," Marc told "Today." "If you ask her where she was born, she says, 'My daddy delivered me in the back of an ambulance.' She knows the whole story. I wanted her to know as soon as she was old enough to understand."
– The Cox Media Group National Content Desk contributed to this report.
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