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Infertility is somehow considered a taboo topic, but the reality is that it happens to a majority of couples. According to the Center for Disease Control, 12 percent of women between the age of 15 and 44 have difficulty carrying a pregnancy. As heartbreaking as infertility is for the couples affected, there are still so many options to help them start families. After all, you don’t have to be related by blood to call a child your own.
Thus is the story of Walter Manis and his wife, Annie. At just 10 years old, the young boy from Arkansas had been given a mission by God: he was going to give birth to a daughter named Chloe. While life threw Walt a number of road bumps along the way, he eventually got to meet Chloe—but not in the way he initially expected to.
Walter Manis’s Heartwarming Story of Adoption Will Make You Believe in Destiny
Around the time he was envisioning his future daughter, Walter and his family had moved to a new neighborhood. It was in this very place where he met his future wife, Annie. The young blonde girl lived just across the street, and it didn’t take too long for her and Walt to become the best of friends.
That friendship eventually blossomed into romance as they grew older, and soon enough, the two got married. “Walt felt like home to be from the very beginning,” Annie says of their relationship
There came a time when Walt and Annie expressed a mutual desire to start a family. Lo and behold, Annie shared the name she picked out for her future daughter: Chloe. It seemed like everything was going according to plan, but the couple later found out that they were infertile and were incapable of starting a family on their own. This put a strain on their relationship with each other as well as their connection with God. But rather than having it ruin their lives, the couple turned to adoption.
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Meeting “Chloe”
Initially, Walter Manis was not on board with the idea of adoption, but he chose to support Annie along the way. During the course of their journey, the couple was introduced to a pregnant woman who wanted to give her baby girl up for adoption. With a barrel of mixed emotions in tow, the Manis drove all the way to meet her. The moment they locked eyes with the expectant mom, Walter’s fears disappeared. The woman looked exactly like the child he had envisioned when he was young. Miraculously, she also wanted to name the child Chloe.
As soon as Chloe was born, Annie and Walter knew that the baby was theirs. But their wonderful story did not end there. After falling in love with Chloe, they chose to adopt again, this time a young girl named Naomi.
The story of Annie and Walter Manis was shared by the YouTube channel Moving Works. Watch the touching video below to learn more about their adoption journey.
