Anndee Hochman

Snowflakes’ “placing families” choose the adoptive parents, then those parents can say yes or no to the match.

“Within an hour, I was in labor. Once things started, it was hard and fast, but from my water breaking until the baby [arrived], it was 55 hours.”

“We have this baby. She has Down syndrome. We think you might be the ones. You might be it.”

“When the foster children went home, that was the most devastating thing I’d been through in my life,” Aileen says.

Kami needed intensive monitoring — weekly ultrasounds after week 30 — and the couple prepared to have premature babies delivered via induction.

Brianna deliberately chose a donor who is willing to be known once any of his offspring reach the age of 18.

To Rosa’s surprise, she loved being pregnant. “I assumed it would be a worst-case scenario, but I was actually calmer and less anxious than I’d been for years.”

“We love André, but it was tough because he was in so much pain and discomfort,” Leo says.

“It’s so crazy; people [have babies] all the time. But when it happens to you for the first time, it’s unreal. This is such magic.”

When I began writing Parent Trip columns nearly nine years ago, my own daughter was an adolescent.