The Adoption World Record

We've been in touch with Hayley's family ever since they first adopted eight children from Sierra Leone. In one go! Hayley is an incredible woman. Having had two children of her own, she felt the greatest gift her family could give the world was to open their doors and arms to adoption. But not just one child or two... eight. The eight children are all brothers and sisters and Hayley knew how important it was for family to stick together. 

The almighty Jones Dozen are all living happily under one roof, storming their way through as much bread and milk as you can imagine. Have a look at this link to see the fabulous pictures the photographer took, illustrating what a happy household it is.

The story appeared in the Sunday Mirror as an exclusive at the weekend, but we have a feeling it won't be the last you'll see of the happy dozen.

You can read more about Hayley here.

Hayley and Mike’s family just tripled in size, from four to 12, following the adoption of eight new children.

Hayley, 31, explains:

It took me a long time to fall pregnant with both Tyler, eight and Tucker, four.

Maybe that’s why Mike, 34, and I always talked about adoption as an option.

‘If we do adopt, I want to adopt from Africa,’ I’d said. I loved Africa and always thought I’d end up living there. Failing that, the least I could do was help one of the many orphans Africa had.

But as we looked into it three years ago, it became apparent it wasn’t going to be easy. International adoption seemed near impossible.

In my job as a teacher, I started teaching a girl who was from Sierra Leone and had been adopted by a family in America. I started researching Sierra Leone and found an orphanage there who might consider us as suitable adoptive parents.

‘We have some sibling groups of as many as four,’ the orphanage told us.

We almost had to laugh - the idea of adopting four children seemed crazy. ‘Maybe we could manage two children,’ we suggested. But four? Four would be too many.

Then we met with the woman who ran the adoption agency.

She gave us a long list of children awaiting adoption. It was so sad - there were just so many names.

‘This is a sibling group of eight,’ she said, pointing to eight names in a row. She didn’t know much about their history - their father had died and their mother couldn’t cope.

Mike and I exchanged glances and in that moment, I knew our lives would never be the same again.

‘We’re in trouble now,’ Mike smiled. We both knew that those eight kids needed us as much as we needed them.

We sat Tucker and Tyler down and asked them how they would feel about having eight new sibling.

Tucker was too young to understand but Tyler was so excited, he started sorting his toys into piles to share among his new sibling.

The agency told us the eight children comprised of seven boys and one girl. It was May 2010 and in September that year, I flew to Sierra Leone to meet our future children.

I was nervous - I didn’t know what the older kids would think of me. But I needn’t have worried. We clicked instantly.

Michael, 16, Samuel, 15, Gabrielle, 12, Levi, 11, Malachi, nine, Judah, eight, Isaiah, seven and Zion, five, wrapped their arms around me and I felt we all belonged together.

I went back and forth to Sierra Leone a further ten times before finally, a few weeks ago, accompanying our new children back into the waiting arms of Mike, Tyler and Tucker.

Now, all ten of our children are living under one roof and life is going well.

The kids are surpassing our expectations - they’re keen to try new food, discover the new culture and get to know Mike, Tyler, Tucker and I as their new family.

Now we have eight new mouths to feed, we have to be careful with money, but we find the most joy from just being together as a family - we don’t have to buy expensive clothes or toys to be happy.

Our eight new kids were always destined to be a part of our family, it just took us a little while to find them. Now, our family has tripled in size and happiness.