They said we didn’t belong there. One minute, my grandson was giggling over whipped cream. The next, a stranger muttered, and a waitress quietly asked us to leave the café. I thought it was just cruelty until my boy pointed at her face… and everything I knew about our lives changed.

My daughter and her husband tried for a baby for almost a decade. Pills, specialists, procedures… everything short of giving up. Their house was quiet in that heavy sort of way, where even hope felt like it was holding its breath.

I remember watching my daughter sit by the window some evenings, hands folded in her lap, eyes vacant. She wasn’t crying, but she wasn’t really there either. She was just waiting. But for what, she didn’t even know anymore.

Then one evening, my phone rang. Her voice trembled on the other end, caught somewhere between laughter and tears. She whispered, “Mom, we’re adopting.”