It's been a big season so far for the young couple . Even though we've seen Jen Arnold battle cancer this season, all the good she and husband Bill Klein have been going through lately seems to outweigh the bad. In the season premiere of the TLC docuseries, Arnold and Klein adopt their second adopted child, Zoe, from India. On last week's episode, their eldest son Will, who was born in China, celebrated his first birthday in the United States.
Thankfully, Arnold is now in remission, but her cancer diagnosis was just one of the many obstacles she and Klein had to overcome on their journey to expand their family. While they seem like a wonderful foursome now, raising a family hasn't been easy for the young couple .
About a year after marrying in 2009, Arnold and Klein were ready to start a family of their own, and they began figuring out how to make it happen. Since Arnold and Klein both suffered from dwarfism, they were unsure whether Arnold would be able to have children. They decided to meet with a fertility specialist in Los Angeles to determine their options. Arnold had to both carry the child and extract eggs for surrogacy, which was risky. However, Arnold and Klein learned that Arnold's eggs were relatively easy to collect, which rightfully got them (and us!) excited to try and start a family.
Arnold and Klein ultimately decided that, given the health risks, surrogacy would be the best option. It turns out that cultivating fertilized eggs is not easy, and after many attempts, Arnold finally succeeded in retrieving her eggs. The couple worked with an agency to find a suitable woman to carry the baby for nine months, eventually settling on a woman named Cindy. Soon, they were ecstatic to learn that the embryo had been successfully transferred into Cindy and she was pregnant with Arnold and Klein's first child.
But then Arnold and Klein received devastating news: Cindy had a miscarriage and lost her baby. "Almost the next day, I woke up and was like, 'I've got to try this again,'" the ever-strong Arnold said after the loss. They did try again, but the second attempt at surrogacy was unsuccessful.
Arnold and Klein decided to put surrogacy on hold and instead turn their attention to adoption as a way to build a family for now. From the beginning, they knew they wanted to adopt a child with dwarfism because, having experienced the condition themselves, they felt they could better understand what the child was going through.
After working with various agencies, they learned that a baby boy with dwarfism (then named Ben) from China was up for adoption. Arnold and Klein fell in love with him just one look at his adorable photos and decided to take Ben home. Things were finally going well for Arnold and Klein in the baby department, they were approved as an official match with Ben, and they got approval from the Chinese government to adopt their son, who they later named William.
Even before they welcomed William into the family, Arnold received notice that another child was up for adoption, a baby girl from India who also had dwarfism. She and Klein thought she would be the perfect addition to their rapidly growing family, and they wanted to adopt her, too.
Then, the day finally arrived. Four years later, Arnold and Klein became parents. A few months later, they were preparing to adopt their daughter, Zoe, from India. But what was supposed to be a happy thing for Arnold, she fell ill during the trip and had to leave India early, forcing Klein to complete the preparations to bring Zoe home. When Arnold returned to the United States, she discovered her illness was cancer.
Now, thankfully, the long and bumpy road to starting a family appears to be over. Every week, we see the loving, sweet relationship between Arnold and Klein now continue between parent and child. It just makes us fall in love with the compassion and resilience of this young couple over and over again.
Image: TLC (2)
