Campaign Story

Hi! We are Maura & Jess Reynolds and we are foster/adoptive parents. We are both also social workers that have worked in child welfare, school social work, crisis and behavioral health, as well as inpatient and residential treatment facilities. Social work is our calling; personally and professionally.

Very early on in our relationship, Jess and I knew we wanted to foster children of all ages, and if the opportunity presented to adopt; we would absolutely do it. When we were going through licensing to become foster parents, we were also given the opportunity to create a birth parent profile for parents who were choosing adoption for their babies. We knew the chances of being chosen were very slim (typically less than three per year in West Virginia), slimmer yet as a two mom family, but we wanted to give ourselves the chance. Having a newborn was a dream of ours that felt so far out of reach.

But on June 10th, we received a call we never imagined. A call that completely changed our lives forever. A little boy was born in the back of an ambulance in the middle of the night, almost five hours away, and birth mom chose US to be his forever family. We were shocked. Everything felt so surreal. Time stopped and moved at the speed of light simultaneously. We quickly made arrangements for the other four kiddos in our home at the time and we made the long drive to meet our little boy. We brought our sweet River home two days later, and it’s like he was meant to be ours all along.

Since we didn’t have the luxury of time on our side to prepare, our village quickly jumped in to help us get all the essentials for our new baby. The last thing we have to do to make River a permanent Reynolds, is pay the legal fees associated with his adoption. If all goes as planned, his adoption will be finalized just in time for his first Christmas!

If anyone feels in their heart that they would like to help us make our sweet boy a forever Reynolds we would be overjoyed and so grateful! Thank you so much for taking the time to read our story and support our journey. We never imagined we would get to raise a newborn, especially under these circumstances!