She was eighteen, barely an adult herself. Quiet in a way that suggested she’d learned early to take up as little space as possible. At our first meeting, she sat rigidly beside her social worker, fear hiding behind posture. Megan reached across the table and gently touched her hand.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Melissa didn’t cry. She said she wasn’t ready to be a mother. Her home life was unstable. Her own mother had left her to figure things out alone. She wanted her baby to grow up safe, secure, in a family not constantly bracing for disaster.
A week later, we all signed.
The agency moved us forward quickly—background checks, classes, inspections, paperwork that felt endless until suddenly it wasn’t.
Then a nurse placed a newborn in Megan’s arms, and everything changed.
We named her Rhea.
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