My fianc\u00e9, Adam, and I adopted Ellie after her parents, who were close friends of ours, died in an accident.<\/p>\n
She was five and had already experienced more loss than most adults.<\/p>\n
We loved her immediately.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Adam’s mother, Patricia, didn’t feel the same way.<\/p>\n
She constantly asked when we’d have a baby of our own.<\/p>\n
Whenever Ellie called her Grandma, Patricia looked uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
I tried to keep the peace because Adam kept hoping his mother would eventually change.<\/p>\n
Then one Saturday, Patricia came over while Adam was working.<\/p>\n
I was downstairs preparing lunch when I heard Ellie scream.<\/p>\n
I ran upstairs.<\/p>\n
Ellie was sitting on her bedroom floor, crying.<\/p>\n
Patricia stood beside her holding a small wooden box.<\/p>\n
It contained the photographs and letters Ellie’s biological parents had left behind.<\/p>\n
Patricia had apparently decided Ellie needed to stop looking at them.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has a new family now,\u201d she said. \u201cShe needs to move on.\u201d<\/p>\n
I took the box from her hands.<\/p>\n
Then Ellie whispered, \u201cShe said my first mommy doesn’t matter anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was enough.<\/p>\n
I told Patricia to leave.<\/p>\n
When Adam came home, I explained everything.<\/p>\n
He called his mother and told her she wouldn’t be visiting Ellie again unless she could treat her with love and respect.<\/p>\n
That night, Ellie asked whether she could still keep her parents’ pictures.<\/p>\n
I hugged her.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, sweetheart. Loving us doesn’t mean you have to stop loving them.\u201d<\/p>\n
She finally smiled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My fianc\u00e9, Adam, and I adopted Ellie after her parents, who were close friends of ours, died in an accident. She was five and had already experienced more loss than most adults. We loved her immediately. Unfortunately, Adam’s mother, Patricia, didn’t feel the same way. She constantly asked when we’d have a baby of our …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10609,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10607\/revisions\/10609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}