This holiday season, Nicole Wakeman's home in South Sutton, New Hampshire, will be even more full than usual as they welcome Nicole's 9 biological children, Tim's 2 children, and 2 children the couple have adopted.
If this year's celebrations are anything like last year's, it will be, as Nicole puts it, "wild, crazy." At Christmas last year, the family numbered 26. "And that's just immediate family, including some of our 13 grandchildren, but not even any uncles or aunts," she says.
It will only be the second time their adopted children, Xera, 10, and her brother Gabriel, 11, experience how their considerable new family celebrates. Xera and Gabriel joined the family officially in July, but the adoption process started a few years back when all but 2 of Nicole and Tim's biological children were grown and gone.
Nicole was busy and happy with her work as Clinical Manager of Inpatient Services at New London Hospital, but when she got home, she found things were "way too quiet." Her husband agreed. They were used to the noise and chaos of nearly a dozen children, most of them boys.
"We were so close to being empty-nesters that the light at the end of the tunnel was giving us a sunburn," Nicole says. "But, we had three empty bedrooms, and there were children out there that needed a bed."
So, a search began for two of those children. In the fall of 2021, Nicole and Tim came across photos and biographical information about Xera and Gabriel, then living with foster parents, and instantly felt a connection. Nicole says, "It's hard to describe. We just felt drawn to them."
When she and Tim were approved as adoptive parents, all that was left was for them to be chosen as the right match for Xera and Gabe. Nicole says, during their first in-person meeting after a number of FaceTimes, "We were going into a store, and Xera reached over and grabbed my hand. I'm thinking, oh, yeah, this is going to be just fine." It took longer for Gabriel, but Nicole says one day he asked, "Are you going to be my mom?' I said, 'Do you want me to be your mom?' He says, 'Yeah.' I said, 'All right. Let's do it.'"
Nicole describes the day the legal adoption took place as "a community affair," with the courtroom packed, and at least 70 people watching via Zoom, including many of her colleagues at New London Hospital.
Now, just months later, Nicole says Xera and Gabriel are making a great adjustment, as are they. "Tim and I have reenlisted for 8 more years," she says. "We're focusing on giving them as much of a normal life as any other kids could have."
As normal as it can be, having 11 brothers and sisters and 13 nieces and nephews, with another arriving in January. But, as Nicole says, "They wanted a big family, and that's what they have."