On February 14, 1993, Maribeth Andretich marries Mark Diamond.

Maria (not legally her name until 1999) is born on May 24, 1996 at UIC Hospital in Chicago, IL. Please enjoy her first-ever picture... apparently the nurses fed her a lemon right before snapping this gem.

On May 31, 1996, Mark and Maribeth officially start their journey as foster parents. Catholic Charities social workers bring them a one-week-old Maria.

Maribeth and Mark quickly decide to change their status from "emergency foster parents" to "permanent: filing for adoption."

In December 1996, Mark and Maribeth celebrate their first Christmas with their new baby, Maria.

Maria soon becomes an older sister to her brother Mark. Here she is posing with her partner-in-crime on their first day of school.

By January 1998, Maria now has a new baby brother. Baby Joe can be seen gazing up at Maria as she rides her wooden rocking horse. Mark wasn't lucky enough to have a horse, I suppose, and so he gets to ride a cow instead. (Taking the term "cowboy" very literally...) At this point, endless court dates prove unproductive in Maribeth and Mark's quest to adopt Maria.

On November 25, 1999, Maria is officially adopted after a long and drawn-out process. Pictured at the Daley Center in downtown Chicago, where the judge signed the order, are Mark and Maribeth with their three kids: Maria, Mark, and Joe. Also featured are Maribeth's parents, Ron and Sheila, along with her sister, Sharon, and her maternal grandmother, Jessica.

In May 1999, Maria is finally baptized alongside her new baby sister, Claire. Mark and Maribeth were unable to baptize Maria as a member of the Catholic Church until after she was legally adopted. Here she is with her godparents, Uncle Tim and and Aunt Sharon. Apparently Maria thought a post-baptism photograph required a stoic face.

Here is Maria in May 2001, pictured with her favorite sister of all time, Tess. The two girls pose for a picture with their dad. Whoever is taking the picture is also presumably holding some kind of food, hence the smile on Tess's face. The rolls on Tess's arms suggest she is a well-fed baby...maybe even over-fed.

Maria becomes a big sister for the seventh and final time in June 2006. Here she is pictured holding the new baby, John. To her right sits Joe, and to her left is Mark. Claire is featured next to Mark, donning a smile with about three teeth. Next to Joe is Tess, wrapped in a rather large pool towel. At the front of the photo are Brendan and Phoebe, who are actually not twins, even though the matching oversized heads may beg to differ.

Here's Maria at her college graduation in 2018. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) with a degree in industrial design. This is pretty "full circle," considering she was born at UIC hospital 22 years earlier.

Here are the Diamond siblings in November 2020. Maria sits in the bottom row at the far left. Next to her sit Claire and John. The top "row," from left to right, is Phoebe, Mark, Brendan, Joe, and Tess.

Maria visits Vietnam, the birthplace of her biological mother, in 2019 through a trip with her work at Orlandi Statuary.