I thought adopting my first love’s nine daughters was the greatest decision of my life.<\/p>\n
For twenty years, I worked, sacrificed, and loved them as if they had always been mine.<\/p>\n
Then one evening, they handed me a letter their mother had written before she died.<\/p>\n
Charlotte revealed she had loved me until the very end\u2014and that she’d been carrying my child after we were separated in high school.<\/p>\n
She never had the chance to tell me.<\/p>\n
As I finished reading, I looked at my eldest daughter, Mia, and finally understood.<\/p>\n
She wasn’t only the daughter I’d chosen…<\/p>\n
She was the daughter I’d lost before I even knew she existed.<\/p>\n
I pulled all nine girls into my arms.<\/p>\n
The letter changed the truth about my past\u2014but it never changed who my family had always been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"