After years of infertility, my husband and I adopted a little girl named Sophie. By the time she turned five, it felt like she\u2019d always been ours. She slept with the hall light on, apologized for everything, and hugged us like she was afraid we might disappear.<\/p>\n
Her fifth birthday was perfect \u2014 yellow balloons, sunflower cake, kids everywhere.<\/p>\n
Then there was a knock at the door.<\/p>\n
A woman stood on our porch and said, \u201cI\u2019m Sophie\u2019s biological mother. And you need to know a terrible secret about her.\u201d<\/p>\n
She told us that when Sophie was a baby, doctors found abnormal blood cells and mentioned leukemia. She never told the agency. She was afraid no one would adopt her if they knew.<\/p>\n
Then she said she wanted compensation.<\/p>\n
We told her no and closed the door.<\/p>\n
The next morning, we took Sophie to the doctor.<\/p>\n
The tests confirmed it \u2014 early-stage leukemia. But it was slow-moving, and we caught it in time.<\/p>\n
Chemo started right away.<\/p>\n
We slept in hospital chairs. Watched cartoons at 3 a.m. Learned which nurses found veins best. Sophie lost her hair but never her spirit.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy blood is having a war,\u201d she told us. \u201cThe good guys are winning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Months later, the doctor smiled and said, \u201cShe\u2019s in remission.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sophie asked, \u201cDid I win?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d the doctor said. \u201cYou did.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t carry her.<\/p>\n
But when it got hard \u2014 unimaginably hard \u2014 we stayed.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s what makes her ours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After years of infertility, my husband and I adopted a little girl named Sophie. By the time she turned five, it felt like she\u2019d always been ours. She slept with the hall light on, apologized for everything, and hugged us like she was afraid we might disappear. Her fifth birthday was perfect \u2014 yellow balloons, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3189","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\/3189","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=3189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3191,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189\/revisions\/3191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}