The Love Issue: The Miracle of Maia

February 6, 2026 Alan Feiler, Editor-in-Chief

Already the parents of two children, Sarah and Josh Wilen officially adopted their daughter, Maia, last November and celebrated her naming ceremony the next day at Beth Israel Congregation in Owings Mills. (Photo by David Stuck)

“Whoever saves a life saves the world.” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5)

It’s a chilly, overcast Sunday afternoon and Maia Cella Wilen is running around the living room of her family’s Lutherville home, chasing after her older sister.

Almost three years old, Maia, wearing a pink jumper, wobbles around at a feverish pace, despite her naturally curved bow legs, and playfully yells out her sister’s name while the Steelers game blares in the background.

“Maia,” her mother, Sarah, calls from the nearby kitchen, “let’s put on your glasses now.” Maia responds with an emphatic, “No!”

Sarah Wilen decides to sweeten the pot and says, “OK, but how about some M&Ms?” Maia comes to a full stop, catches her breath and yells out, “Yes!”

Such a scene may sound like a typical negotiation between parent and young child, but Maia is no typical child and the Wilens are far from ordinary parents. Theirs is a story of pure and unadulterated love — for a child alone and forsaken in the world and in desperate need of love and care, and for their concern about the welfare of others despite personal sacrifices.

At Maia’s naming ceremony at Owings Mills’ Beth Israel Congregation late last November, the Wilens read a poem to her from the bimah, with not a single dry eye in the sanctuary: “We didn’t give you the gift of life, but in our hearts we know/The love we feel is deep and real, as if it had been so/For us to have each other is like a dream come true!/No, we didn’t give you the gift of life, life gave us the gift of you.”

Josh and Sarah Wilen don’t consider themselves heroic or extraordinary by any means, but simply your garden-variety suburban mom and dad of three. Both 45, Josh, a Pittsburgh native, works as a regional environmental health and safety manager at a major online retailer, while the Baltimore-born-and-bred Sarah is a pediatric nurse.

Their journey with Maia began in March of 2023 when she was in the neonatal intensive care unit at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore.

Maia, who was born two months earlier at Sinai, returned to the hospital in respiratory distress for the second time. She was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit after being discharged from the NICU. At the time, Sarah was working as a nurse at Sinai on the pediatric floor.

The biological daughter of immigrant parents of Romani background, Maia was born with a rare genetic disorder known as Stuve-Wiedemann Syndrome (STWS). STWS causes respiratory distress, bone bowing, spinal deformities, some general developmental delays, feeding and swallowing challenges, nervous system issues such as breathing and temperature problems, and shortness of stature. Sadly, infants with STWS often do not live past one or two years of age.

As a result of financial and familial constraints — as well as having suffered the loss of another child with STWS a few years earlier — Maia’s biological parents left her at the hospital and stopped visiting. She became a legal ward of Baltimore City and remained at the hospital for approximately 100 days, waiting for a family to foster or adopt her.

“It was just that she was there but so alone and by herself, this little baby with no one to interact with,” says Sarah, who now works as a nurse at Perry Hall Middle School. “It was so sad how she was there by herself all the time and no one came to visit. She almost died twice after being discharged from the NICU, from cardiac arrest, and her parents had just disappeared, and every foster family they tried to connect her with didn’t work out for some reason.”

Clinging to life and barely able to move her small body, Maia remained at the hospital for several months, with only the attention and love of hospital staff to sustain her.

One night, the Wilens went out to dinner in Fells Point to celebrate their 11th wedding anniversary. At one point during the meal, they reminisced about meeting on Jdate and their lives together since, about their children and their recent home renovation, and about all of their blessings in general.

“To this day, neither one of us knows how the conversation turned but Maia’s name came up and I told Josh about her,” Sarah recalls. Josh agrees: “We still have no clue how it all came up. We just use the word beshert, it was meant to be.”

Maia Wilen — Sarah Wilen says of Maia, shown here at home playing with stuffed animals, “She’s just our daughter. There’s no question we love that kid as much as we love our other kids. … Everyday with Maia is a gift.” (Photo by David Stuck)

Listening to Sarah talk about Maia’s dire circumstances and the scarcity of families with the ability or resources to care for her, Josh simply blurted out, “Well, why can’t we do something about it?”

Still rather stunned by his response years later, Sarah says, “I was, like, ‘For real?’ We then went through every reason why we shouldn’t do it. This kind of thing just wasn’t on our radar. Our kids [now ages 10 and 12] were older and we didn’t have to worry about babysitters anymore. Things in life were easier. … But Josh always said he wanted three kids, so if this is the way it had to happen, this is the way it had to happen.”

Says Josh, trying to keep his emotions in check: “I just remember saying, ‘We have a choice, she doesn’t. Why wouldn’t we do this?’ That was pretty much it. We talked about all the logistics. We had just added to our home an extra bedroom, and we had a nanny for seven years that we loved and was part of our family. I was working from home. We figured financially we’ll figure it all out.

“I tend to look at things from a certain perspective,” he says. “I try to be a team leader and I think, ‘Why are we here? What is our purpose?’ I think for Sarah and I, one of the reasons we’re here is to do this.”

‘Great Communal Effort’

At first, the Wilens say they were only considering the idea of fostering Maia and adoption never really entered their minds. Also, they did not think they would necessarily be allowed to bring Maia home because of Sarah’s work at Sinai.

“We just thought it might be a conflict of interest, professionally,” says Josh.

But to their surprise and delight, the Wilens discovered that the foster parenting program system was amenable to the idea.

“Everyone said she probably wasn’t going to make it. So we were bringing her home so she wouldn’t die alone in a hospital,” said Sarah. “We talked to our nanny, Lisa, who said she was on board and even bought a minivan. We talked to our son and explained Maia’s situation in the hospital, and he was, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’”

Meanwhile, the Wilens’ daughter was away at summer camp. Unsure of her response and not wanting to disrupt her camping experience in any way, they decided to delay telling her of their decision until picking her up from camp.

“We left Maia with our nanny and picked up our daughter at camp and said over lunch, ‘Remember how you always said you wanted a baby sister? Well, she’s waiting at home for you,’” Sarah says with a laugh. “She made us stop by Target on the way home to get Maia a present, and she immediately fell in love with her. She’s Maia’s favorite person.”

As soon as Maia came home with the Wilens, she received hospice care from the Gilchrist Kids program due to her serious medical condition.

“They would come every two weeks to check in on her, and a doctor would come once a month,” says Sarah. “She had music therapy, and they provided 24-hour support if an issue came up. It worked out very well for us because we knew how to care for a baby but Maia was different. So if anything was off, the nurse knew her really well and we’d talk about it and figure out her meds and whatever.

“They took all the data and put it all together, and we all went along by trial and error. It was just a great communal effort,” she says. “There were probably 12 doctors working through an email chain to determine how best to care for her.”

In those first few months with the Wilens, Maia had more than 100 appointments with physicians and physical and occupational therapists. She still attends physical therapy sessions twice a week and occupational therapy once a week. (In the future, Maia will require surgery to help her with mobility issues and other matters.)

“She started ‘army crawling’ and they’ve worked with her quite a bit,” Sarah says. “When we brought her home at six months, she couldn’t even turn her head and had to wear helmet.”

At first, Josh admits he struggled to connect emotionally with Maia.

“Now we have a very, very strong connection,” he says. “But when we first brought her home, you’d look into her eyes and there was nothing going on. There was just no emotion. She never cried and didn’t laugh. She was just a cute little baby. But we’ve spent a lot of time together. There’s a bond there now that I can’t even describe.’

Remembers Sarah: “Probably a month or two months [after Maia came to live with the Wilens], Josh said to me, ‘I never knew you could love someone so much that wasn’t your own.’ It’s amazing how that transformation happened. She’s just our daughter. There’s no question we love that kid as much as we love our other kids. Every little thing has been so cool — when she first sat up, when she first rolled over, when she first took a step. Everything has just been … extra incredible.”

Like any Jewish mom, Sarah can’t stop herself from kvelling about Maia, who attends the Goldsmith Early Childhood Center at Chizuk Amuno Congregation.

“She is so smart. You spend 20 minutes with her and it’s impossible not to fall in love with her,” says Sarah. “She’s always happy. She’s just an awesome kid. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be in her body but if she was suffering, you’d never know it, She’s just always on the go. Nothing gets in her way.”

The Miracle of Maia

Turning the age of two was a watershed moment for Maia.

“Once she turned two, a lot of the things that were so dangerous before she sort of outgrew,” says Sarah. “They don’t go away, but they become more manageable. We know what we’re doing now. … When she turned two, she graduated from hospice.”

Around this time, the Wilens started considering the adoption process and spoke with attorneys and government officials about the possibility. As Maia’s legal guardian, Baltimore City was required to place advertisements in a legal journal attempting to possibly locate her birth parents, to no avail.

“That’s a last step to terminating parental rights,” says Josh. “Once that happens, the petition to adopt can be filed. Everything was a big domino effect. We had to get her a birth certificate and a Social Security number.”

Before the official adoption, the Wilens took Maia to the mikvah at Pikesville’s Beth El Synagogue last mid-November for a conversion ceremony. Her Hebrew name is Maia Chaya.

On Nov. 22, 2025 — National Adoption Day — the Wilens went to the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse in downtown Baltimore to officially celebrate Maia’s adoption with 25 other adoptive families.

“It was such a fun experience,” says Sarah. “We had probably 40 people there for Maia, as well as people watching [via FaceTime] from all over the country.”

The following day, the family celebrated Maia’s brit bat naming ceremony at Beth Israel, with Rabbi Emeritus Jay R. Goldstein and Senior Rabbi Rachel Safman officiating. (Performing at the ceremony was Sarah’s cousin, Cantor Stephanie Weishaar of Columbia’s Kol Nefesh congregation.) More than 150 people from all over the country attended the gathering, which was also live-streamed.

“A baby-naming is a special event,” says Sarah. “Maia sang on the microphone; she ran up and down the bimah. She had a very good time. It marked two years of hard, grueling work coming all together.”

Sarah’s mom, Reisterstown resident Paula Friedman, says it was a day never to be forgotten. “She’s just brought so much joy and love to our lives,” she says of Maia. “She’s incredible.”

Raising Maia with a strong Jewish identity was important to the Wilens, who belong to Beth Israel.

“We do Shabbat every Friday night,” says Josh. “We call my mom, and Maia loves lighting the candles and putting a hat on. We had to teach her that you don’t blow out the candles for Shabbat, but she enjoys the holidays and sings all the songs. Everything we do with our family and culture, she’s part of it all.”

When asked about their feelings toward Maia’s birth parents, the Wilens say they strive to be non-judgmental and compassionate. They say the parents — who reportedly do not speak English and struggled financially with several other children — likely could not effectively navigate the byzantine bureaucratic, legal and insurance systems required for a child with so many health care struggles.

“I know they did for her what they needed to do. They saved her life by leaving her at the hospital,” says Sarah. “I only hope we are doing for her what they couldn’t do. If they hadn’t left her, we wouldn’t have our Maia. And we’ll fight for whatever she needs.”

Adds Josh: “If they would’ve kept her, she would’ve passed away. I have no doubt. I just can’t imagine her parents going through all that we went through. We both are very tenacious people. But at times, it’s just been overwhelming. So they probably saved her life. … I sometime wonder what they’re thinking on her birthday. They probably just think she is dead, because she was in such bad shape.”

The Wilens, who enjoy traveling and sightseeing, admit they have to make some adjustments in their lives to facilitate Maia’s participation, largely because she requires tube feeding. But they say they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Sometimes when we’re at the beach, I have to take Maia back because it’s too hot. It’s an adjustment, that’s all,” says Sarah.

“But it’s all the right stuff,” says Josh. “We throw her in a backpack carrier and go everywhere. Nothing stops us. … Someone asked us recently if we remember what life was like before Maia. We have no clue. But we do all the same things we did before. Our kids are involved in tons of sports, and we go to all their games. We just figure it all out. It’s challenging, but you figure it out. We go everywhere.”

Sarah says the adage “It takes a village” more than applies to their situation with Maia.

“It’s been amazing, all of the people we’ve been fortunate enough to meet in this process,” she says. “All the doctors and nurses, our nanny Lisa is wonderful. Our kids have been amazing. They don’t see her as any different.”

Casting their eyes toward the future, particularly regarding Maia’s chronic health condition, the Wilens say they take things one day at a time and do everything in their power to help and provide her with a never-ending supply of love and support.

“Every day with Maia is simply a gift,” says Sarah, with Josh adding, “If we can inspire another family to think ‘Hey, if they can do it, why can’t we?’ that would be great. It’s such a selfish world. But we’re not on this earth to take. We’re here to give. I know what it is to love my own children, and there’s absolutely no difference with Maia.”