After years of infertility and heartbreak, Jacob and I chose adoption. That’s how Bobby came into our lives—a quiet, watchful five-year-old who hadn’t spoken a single word since entering the foster system. We were told his parents were gone, and all he needed was time and love to heal.

We gave him everything: a bright room filled with dinosaurs, bedtime stories, cookies baked together in silence. He never spoke, but he watched, listened, and stayed close. On his sixth birthday, everything changed. As we sang to him around a cake decorated with little green T-Rexes, he looked up and whispered five words: “My parents are still alive.”

Shocked, Jacob and I reached out to the foster home. That’s when Mrs. Jones admitted the truth. Bobby’s wealthy birth parents had abandoned him after a temporary illness, paying the agency to lie and keep their identities hidden. The story about the note was fake. Our hearts broke all over again.

Despite our fears, we took Bobby to meet them. His birth parents looked stunned—and ashamed. They stammered weak excuses about not being ready. But Bobby’s voice was steady. “I don’t want to go with them. I want to stay with Mommy and Daddy.”

I pulled him into my arms, tears blurring everything. “You don’t have to go. You’re ours.”

From that day on, Bobby blossomed. He began to laugh, talk, and dream openly. He chose us—and we chose him.

And in every “Mommy” he says now, I hear the truth: Love made this family. Nothing else.