Mike and Hayley Jones always wanted more than two children.
But after both their sons had difficult births they decided to adopt a child from Africa.
Incredibly, the couple ended up adopting eight children, all from the same family, and all at once.
Hayley went from being a mum of two to a mum of 10 in the space of a plane journey.
The amazing adoption is thought to be the first of its kind in the world and it has turned their lives upside down.
“Not a second goes by when I don’t need to be cleaning, cooking, teaching, washing or just listening,” says Hayley, 31. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
After planning to adopt one child from an orphanage in Sierra Leone, the couple heard about seven boys and a girl, aged five to 16, whose father had died and mother couldn’t cope.
Incredibly, they decided they would take them all.
Mike, 34, explains, “When we were told of a group of eight siblings, I got chills all over my body. They were just names on a piece of paper but I knew we were meant to adopt them.”
Hayley wasn’t sure at first. She says, “Mike is such a planner and he’d say we could only afford two at the most so I was open-mouthed. But I’m so pleased I trusted Mike because he was right. Now our family feels complete.”
The couple, from Tennessee in the US, married 15 years ago after meeting at their local church. When their sons Tyler, nine, and Tucker, five, were born Hayley needed emergency sections.
“I was bedridden with Tucker and hospitalised for several months with Tyler. It was a scary situation,” she says.
After talking about adopting, teacher Hayley discovered one of her students had been adopted by a US family who later set up their own orphanage, The Raining Season, in his Sierra Leone homeland.
In 2010, Hayley flew out to meet Michael, now 16, Samuel, 15, Gabrielle, 12, Levi, 11, Malachi, nine, Judah, eight, Isaiah, seven and Zion, five.
“They were all waiting for me at the gate,” she says. “They ran up and kept touching me and asking questions. I definitely knew right then they were going to be our kids.”
Six months later, Mike made the trip himself, and over the next three years Hayley went eight more times.
Meanwhile, the couple extended their four-bedroom bungalow after raising £10,000 helped by the local community, which also donated clothes and bunk beds.
Then in March last year, Hayley went to collect the children.
The family travel in a minibus and are known as the “Jones Dozen”. But just getting out of the house is difficult.
“We shout ‘shoes on’ and 15 minutes later we’ve still not left,” says Hayley, who has now given up her job.
“We have a chore rota, so after dinner we have two washing up, one wiping the table and another vacuuming under it. You could eat a whole other meal off the food left under the table!”
The couple have been overwhelmed by the generosity of friends and strangers. “I was at a drive-thru and a woman just handed me $40,” Hayley says.
What an incredible story.
