I Thought I Was Protecting My Son — Until the Truth About His Mother Broke Our Family

The first time I saw Adam, he was five years old and sitting alone on the concrete steps outside a foster home.
He held a small red toy car in both hands, rolling it back and forth without really looking at it. His eyes stayed fixed on the ground, as if meeting anyone’s gaze might make him disappear.

I’d been told his mother had left to begin a new life with a man who didn’t want children.

But hearing it and seeing him were two very different things.

When I crouched down and introduced myself, he didn’t answer. He just tightened his grip on the toy car. In that moment, something inside me shifted. I didn’t just want to adopt him. I wanted to promise him something permanent—something no one else had given him.