Joss Stone Gets Candid About 'Difficult' Adoption Journey After Welcoming Son Bear with Husband Cody DaLuz (Exclusive)

Joss Stone is opening up about her rocky journey to adopting her newborn son Bear with her husband Cody DaLuz.

The singer, 37, caught up with PEOPLE after announcing that she and DaLuz welcomed their third baby together, a son named Bear, through adoption. Stone, who also shares son Shackleton, 2, and daughter Violet, 3, with DaLuz, says the couple always knew they wanted to adopt.

"It's so amazing to actually finally be here, to have him here, because we have wanted to adopt for so long," the newly-minted mom of three tells PEOPLE, adding, "When I first met Cody, that was what we spoke about in the first few weeks of us talking."

"We've had it in our dreams for such a long time and we've been trying to adopt for over a year and a half. And we've had some adoptions fall through," Stone explains. "We've had moments where we were chosen, but we couldn't get there in time. There's been lots of things that have happened, and you start to feel like it's not going to happen."

"And then, we got that call," she remembers fondly, "and it's just the most beautiful thing. He's so sweet and his birth mother is so sweet. She could not be any nicer. It's just like everything is perfect. We haven't got to deal with a difficult situation. It's all love. Everyone is just full of love for this little guy."

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Related: Joss Stone Shares She Adopted a Baby Boy with Her Husband Cody DaLuz — and Reveals His Name: 'We Are in Love'

As Stone and her husband, who was also welcomed through adoption, began the adoption process, Stone said they used DaLuz's "firsthand experience" as a starting point. "He has firsthand experience of how it feels to not know your mom, to not know your dad, to not know where you're from, and we didn't want that for our baby," she explains. "So we put ourselves in a position where we can be chosen by the mom that is placing her child for adoption. So that way, it's all love from every direction."

Before meeting Bear's birth mom, Stone and Daluz's matched with multiple families that fell through — including one experience she says was "terrible" with a birth mom who put up a "whole facade."

"She thought, 'Oh, I'll just take this money and then I'll just keep the baby.' So it was all just this whole facade," Stone recalls.

Despite the difficult scenario, Stone and DaLuz picked themselves back up and continued their search for a new addition to their family, because as parents in the adoption process, Stone says, "We have to be strong. And the second we are weak, take a minute, wipe your tears, take a deep breath, stand up tall and walk forward. That's the most important thing."

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She then tells PEOPLE that her "mantra throughout the months of waiting was "she's not my baby until she's my baby." She adds, "I literally would say it to myself almost daily."

Stone candidly shares that adoption is "something where you have to put yourself in the position where it's possible and then pray. You just have to pray, and I'm so glad that we did. He's just beautiful."

After bringing Bear home for the first time, Violet "was very excited and very happy to be big sister," the mom of three says. "She wanted to hold him and she wanted to feed him, and every time he cries she's like, 'Oh, okay, his pacifier!' She's trying to help me."

Shackleton, on the other hand, was more excited to see his mom than his baby brother. "I had to stay in the hospital with Bear for a night," Stone explains, "and Shackleton, I think just really missed me. So he didn't even notice the baby was there. He ran up to me and just gave me this big hug. I was like, 'Look, you've got a brother! And he was like, 'Okay, whatever.'"

On Dec. 20 and 21, Stone will be traveling to Costa Mesa, Calif. to perform tracks from her album Merry Christmas, Love during a Christmas Symphony show. Unfortunately, as Bear was born "11 weeks premature," she tells PEOPLE can't take him with her on the road. "His tiny little lungs are quite vulnerable."

Luckily, Bear is "coming along quickly," the musician says. "He almost weighs 6 lbs. now. Whereas when I first met him last week, he weighed 4 lbs."

This isn't the end of the road for Stone and Daluz on their adoption journey. "We want to adopt a bunch of kids," she says. "So hopefully he won't be the only one in this family that's adopted."

"We just love babies. I always say, more kids, more love," Stone tells PEOPLE. "They're just little rays of sunshine and they deserve all the love that we can give them."

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