Children of Dreams: An Adoption Memoir (Revised)

"Do you have anything to say?" the judge asked.

My husband, Tim, looked down to hide his shame. "I took away her dreams."

I swallowed hard to hold back tears. After eight years of marriage, supporting him through medical school, and trying to conceive, I couldn't bear the pain of his affair and the divorce he sought.

I left the courthouse where I worked as a court reporter, thinking my life was over. I had lost the man I deeply loved and wanted a child more than anything. Now the other woman carried my husband's baby. Jealousy consumed me. Even my friends at church knew she was pregnant before I did. No one told me-not one person. But God did.

I couldn't imagine being single again. I couldn't imagine being happy again. I couldn't imagine ever being a mommy. How could he leave me after all I had done for him? I loved Tim too much to hate him. I felt like a fool for hanging on to broken dreams as my biological clock reminded me each month of my barrenness. Desperation had given way to acceptance of the inevitable, but was God impotent to mend my broken heart? Despite my unbelief, I knew God held the answers to my future. I clung to that as I clutched my Bible and cried.

Twenty-five years later, I wrote Children of Dreams, a true story of God's redemption that changed my life-forever.