I wanted to be a mother more than anything. Years of miscarriages drained me of hope until I barely recognized myself. After the fifth loss, even the doctor stopped offering reassurance. That night, alone on the bathroom floor, I prayed out loud for the first time in my life.
“Dear God… if You give me a child, I promise I’ll save one too. I’ll give a home to a child who has none.”
Ten months later, my daughter Stephanie was born—pink, loud, and fiercely alive. Joy filled every corner of me, but I never forgot that promise.
On Stephanie’s first birthday, my husband and I signed adoption papers. Two weeks later, we brought Ruth home. She’d been abandoned on Christmas Eve, left near the city’s main Christmas tree. She was quiet, watchful, and serious beyond her years. I loved her instantly.
We raised the girls knowing the truth. “Stephanie grew in my belly,” I’d say. “Ruth grew in my heart.” They accepted it—until they didn’t.
By seventeen, their differences had hardened into rivalry. The night before prom, Ruth told me she was leaving. Through tears, she said Stephanie had told her the truth—that I adopted her only because of a promise I made to God.
My heart shattered.
I told Ruth everything—the grief, the prayer, the love. I told her she was never a bargain or a debt.
She left anyway.
Four days later, she came home.
“I don’t want to be your promise,” she said. “I just want to be your daughter.”
I held her and whispered the only truth that mattered.
“You always were.”
