I dreamed of being a mother more than anything else in the world. After many years of suffering and loss, my prayers were answered, and my family grew beyond my wildest dreams. But 17 years later, one quiet sentence from my adopted daughter broke my heart.
I sat in my car in the car park of the fertility clinic and watched as a woman walked out holding an ultrasound photo.
Her face glowed with joy, as if she had been given the whole world.
I was so devastated that I couldn’t even cry.
At home, my husband and I tiptoed around each other, choosing our words carefully, as if we were choosing which floorboards to step on in an old house.
I was so devastated that
I couldn’t even cry.
A few months later, when my next fertile period came around, the tension returned to our home.
‘We can take a break.’ My husband put his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs making small circles.
‘I don’t want a break. I want a baby.’ He didn’t argue. What could he say?
The miscarriages came one after another.
Each time it seemed faster and colder.
The third happened when I was folding baby clothes I had bought on sale. I couldn’t help myself.
I was holding a jumpsuit with a duckling on the front when I felt the familiar, terrible warmth.
My husband was patient, but the losses were taking their toll on our relationship.
The losses were taking their toll on our relationship.
I saw the quiet fear in his eyes every time I said, ‘Maybe next time.’
He was worried about me, worried about my pain, worried about what all these desires were doing to both of us.
After the fifth miscarriage, the doctor stopped using encouraging words. He sat across from me in his sterile office with cute pictures of babies on the walls.
‘Some bodies just… don’t work,’ he said softly. ‘There are other options.’
That night, John slept, and I envied him because I couldn’t find peace anywhere.
I got out of bed.
Sitting alone on the cold tiled floor of the bathroom, leaning against the bathtub, I looked at the seams between the tiles and counted the cracks.
It was the darkest moment of my life.
I was desperate, drowning, and so I grabbed onto anything that could end my suffering.
For the first time in my life, I prayed out loud.
“Dear God, please… if you give me a child… I promise I will save one too. If I become a mother, I will give a home to a child who doesn’t have one.”
The words hung in the air, and I felt… nothing.
‘Can you even hear me?’ I said, sobbing.
I never told John about this. Not even when I received an answer to that prayer.
Ten months later, Stephanie was born, screaming and pink and angry at the world.
She came into the world a fighter, demanding, living in a way that took your breath away.
John and I burst into tears, hugging each other tightly, surrounding our little girl with all the love we had waited so long to share with her.
Joy overwhelmed me, but the memory sat right there with it.
I had made a promise in prayer about this child, and now I had to fulfil it.
A year later, on Stephanie’s first birthday, while the guests were singing and the balloons were touching the ceiling, John and I went into the kitchen.
I put the adoption papers in a folder that I had decorated with wrapping paper. John smiled and raised an eyebrow when I handed it to him with a ribbon-adorned pen.
‘I just wanted to make it pretty. To welcome the new member of our family.’
We signed the adoption papers.
Two weeks later, we brought Ruth home.
She had been left on Christmas Eve, near the main Christmas tree, with a blank note.
She was tiny, quiet — completely different from Stephanie.
I thought this difference meant that the girls would complement each other perfectly, but I didn’t consider how much more pronounced their differences would be than I had imagined when they grew up.
Ruth explored the world as if trying to figure out the rules before anyone noticed she was breaking them.
I noticed right away that Ruth didn’t cry unless she was alone.
‘She’s an old soul,’ my husband joked, gently rocking her in his arms.
I held her closer.
I never would have thought that this precious child would grow up to break my heart.
I never would have guessed that this precious child
would break my heart.
The girls grew up knowing the truth about how Ruth was adopted. We put it simply:
‘Ruth grew in my heart, and Stephanie grew in my tummy.’
They accepted it as children accept the fact that the sky is blue and water is wet. It just was.
I loved them both equally intensely, but as they grew older, I began to notice friction between my girls.
I began to notice friction between my girls.
They were so different… like oil and water.
Stephanie attracted attention without even trying. She walked into rooms as if she owned them and fearlessly asked questions that made adults feel uncomfortable.