A man feels like he missed out on the opportunity to have children, and he decides to become a single dad and adopt twin boys. His life is finally complete, but when he sees the twins’ birth certificates, he screams out loud....CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
Marcus ripped open the envelope. He made a promise to himself and the twins that he wouldn’t open this envelope unless absolutely necessary, but the temptation had become too much. Up until he’d obtained the birth certificates, he’d been more than happy to just accept the closed adoption for what it was. But ever since the envelope had been placed in his hands, he felt their pull. Now he had given in to temptation. He slid the birth certificates out of the envelope and cast it to one side.
As he scanned the first certificate, when his eyes landed on the parents’ names, a jolt of recognition shot through him. As he pieced together all the information, it became very clear who was on the birth certificate, and his past came rushing back to him.
He screamed out loud and dropped the certificates on the floor. Fate had played a cruel trick, but things were about to get even worse.
Marcus had always wanted to be a father for as long as he could remember. He dreamed of the perfect family life: the nice house, a neat yard with two children playing in it, and a loving wife to come home to each night. But the older he got, the further away his dream seemed to get.
He thought his college sweetheart was the one. The pair of them had been inseparable for many years, but Anna had demons in her past that she just couldn’t overcome. And just as he’d been planning to propose, she disappeared, leaving just a simple note behind, claiming she was no good for him.
Marcus had been heartbroken. After Anna’s disappearance, the young man found dating hard. Anna was the only person he’d ever loved, and he just couldn’t get over the relationship.
He also found it hard to trust anyone else after she left him. So the pattern repeated itself: he’d be dating someone, and then just a few months into the relationship, it would break down, and they’d go their separate ways.
Now Marcus found himself in a position where he felt like his time to become a father was running out. He had a nice house and a neat yard, but no wife and kids. His life felt incomplete. One evening, Marcus had grown fed up with wallowing in his own misery and wanted to get his life back on track.
Just because he wasn’t in a relationship didn’t mean he couldn’t have kids. There were other options available to him, and although he knew that being a single dad would be tough, he was ready to take on the challenge.
So he began to research adoption, certain that he could make a huge difference in the life of a child in need of a loving home. The adoption process was tough, and Marcus came up against many obstacles. He was sure the fact that he was a single man didn’t work in his favor.
But he was determined to see it through. Finally, the adoption agency told him they were certain they’d found a match. However, there was a catch: the match was for twins.
Marcus thought it over, and after a discussion with his family, he decided to go ahead with the adoption. Besides, he’d always imagined having two children, so twins would work perfectly. Although it would definitely take a bit of getting used to.
After months of paperwork and struggles, Marcus finally adopted the two little boys, who were named George and Jack. He was told it was a closed adoption, so he wouldn’t know anything about the parents.
In turn, the biological parents would have no contact with them. Marcus was happy to accept that this was what the biological parents had chosen and would raise George and Jack as his own.
When the time was right, he would tell them they were adopted, but that time was many years away yet. Life with the twins was everything Marcus had hoped it would be and more. His parents were delighted with the arrival of George and Jack and took to their new role as grandparents with ease.
Marcus had worried that some people might struggle to accept the boys into the family, but he was beyond happy to see that everyone loved the twins just as much as he did, and they slotted right into the family. It was clearly meant to be.
There was never a time when Marcus didn’t marvel at how much his life had changed for the better with twins. Watching them grow up was a pleasure, and as they both developed their personalities, Marcus found whole new things to love and appreciate about his sons.
George was curious and adventurous, whereas Jack was more reserved, but together they made the best little team. George would bring Jack out of his shell, but Jack would reign George in when he was too boisterous.
Marcus couldn’t believe how lucky he’d been. Just a few years ago, he thought he’d missed his opportunity to be a father, but there he was with the two best sons in the world. When George and Jack started school, Marcus didn’t expect to miss them quite as much as he did.
He put his whole life on hold for the boys. Ever since he adopted them, he had reduced his hours at work, though he was always thankful that his family had stepped in to help with childcare so he didn’t have to quit. He had given up his hobbies, and his social life was practically non-existent, but Marcus hadn’t minded the sacrifices at all.
However, he’d been secretly looking forward to having some more time to himself once the twins went off to school, but now they were gone, he didn’t even know what to do with himself.
It was like learning who he was all over again. He met up with old friends, picked up a few more hours at work, and even joined the gym.
He wanted to be in the best shape he could be to ensure he could keep up with his sons for many more years to come. Life couldn’t have been more perfect, and Marcus never once felt like he was missing out by not having a partner. But then a surprise phone call flipped his world upside down.
Marcus was just wrapping up his work for the day, ready to go and collect George and Jack from school when he received a phone call informing him that George had been taken to the hospital. Admittedly, Marcus wasn’t that concerned when he first heard the news.
George’s curiosity and sense of adventure meant he was often covered in small cuts and bruises. There had been a few times when they’d found themselves in the ER because he’d been riding his bike too fast or he’d climbed too high in a tree.
But when the school explained that George had gotten ill very fast and had been rushed to the hospital, Marcus began to panic. This wasn’t a simple cut or bruise. George was seriously ill. On the way to the hospital, Marcus knew he was driving erratically, but he didn’t care.
He just needed to get to his son. He was just thankful he didn’t get pulled over. At the hospital, a doctor explained to the worried father that they needed to run some tests, as they didn’t quite know what was wrong with George.
When Marcus stepped into the hospital room and saw his son lying on the bed, his heart broke. George looked so small on the bed, and the normally bright and bubbly little boy had been replaced by a pale, scared-looking child. It was like all the spirit had been knocked out of him.
Marcus hugged his son and gently stroked his soft brown curls, telling him everything would be okay. But the truth was, Marcus didn’t know if everything would be okay. The doctors didn’t even know what was wrong with George.
The next day, the doctor asked Marcus if he could have a chat with him. The concerned father was terrified of receiving bad news, but what the doctor had to say would cause problems that Marcus had never imagined.
The doctor explained that they were concerned that George’s illness was hereditary, but without knowing who the biological mother and father were, they couldn’t look into their medical history.
Marcus had always wanted to respect the closed adoption process, but his son’s health was more important than the privacy of the biological parents. Marcus knew he had to obtain George and Jack’s birth certificates, and he needed them fast. But it wouldn’t be an easy process.
All while George was in the hospital, Marcus fought the court to obtain the birth certificates. But when he was finally granted access to them, another twist came.
George had started to vastly improve, and now the doctors weren’t sure that genetics had anything to do with his illness at all. Now Marcus had a tough decision to make: open the envelope with the birth certificates or trust the doctor’s decision.
All night, Marcus thought long and hard about the decision he needed to make. By the morning, he was certain what he wanted to do.
There was no denying that George was getting much better. The course of treatment was obviously working, and now there seemed to be little gain in finding out who his son’s biological parents were. He was their father no matter what. So Marcus decided to trust the doctors and leave the envelope sealed.
He shoved the envelope deep in a drawer and tried to put it to the back of his mind. But now he had access to that information, it was hard to ignore. George was finally allowed home with strict instructions for Marcus on how to manage his recovery.
Now that the father didn’t have daily hospital visits to focus on, the birth certificates almost seemed to call out to him. Each night when George and Jack had gone to bed, Marcus would sit staring at the drawer that contained the envelope, feeling the pull of the knowledge it contained.
If he ripped open the envelope, he’d have answers. But would it really achieve anything? But the lure of the information on the birth certificate proved too much, and just 2 weeks after George’s release from the hospital, Marcus found himself with the envelope in his hands once again.
When he pushed the envelope in his drawer, he made a promise to himself and the twins that he wouldn’t open the envelope unless he really needed to. But now he was about to break that promise. He felt guilty, but there was just something about the information that seemed irresistible to him.
He ripped open the envelope and took a deep breath. Once he looked at the birth certificates, there was no going back. He slid the birth certificates out of the envelope and cast it to one side. As he scanned the first certificate, when his eyes landed on the parents’ names, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.
He continued to cast his eyes over the certificate, and as he pieced together all the information, it became very clear who was on the birth certificate, and his past came rushing back to him.
He screamed out loud and dropped the certificates on the floor. This couldn’t be right. On both certificates, the mother’s name was documented as Anna Khloe Whitlock. Could the twins’ biological mother really be Marcus’s college sweetheart? Marcus’s heart was racing.
What twist of fate had made him the adoptive father of Anna’s children? For years he thought that he and Anna would be together forever, having kids and growing old together. But when Anna had disappeared, she’d taken all hope of that happening with her.
Marcus needed to know more, but what he was about to find out would leave him devastated. When Anna had left, Marcus knew she’d been pulled back into her past. Anna had had a difficult childhood, and as a result, she turned to drink and drugs from a young age.
Through the love and care of an aunt, Anna got sober and straightened up her act enough to obtain the grades she needed to get into college. When Marcus met her, everyone thought he was just what Anna needed: a kind and caring man, a safe space for Anna to heal from her past trauma.
And for a while, it worked. But Anna could never fully heal, no matter what Marcus did. Anna’s demons always came back to haunt her. She slipped from sobriety several times throughout their relationship, and each time, Marcus guided her back on the right path.
He believed that if he proposed and showed Anna she was safe and secure with him, then she’d change for good. But it was too late. The lure of drink and drugs had Anna in its grasp once again, and this time she disappeared for good, leaving Marcus shattered.
Through research and contacting family members, Marcus began to piece together what had happened between her disappearance and the birth of the twins, and it was a story that broke his heart and left him wishing Anna had reached out to him for help.
As he suspected, Anna had fallen back in with her old crowd and was consumed by alcohol and drugs for quite some time. One day, she turned up at her aunt’s house, begging for help, and her aunt, of course, took her in.
But Anna had nothing. No money, no job, no home. With her past, she knew it would be difficult to secure a job. But when she learned about a surrogacy agency looking for surrogate mothers, she saw it as an opportunity to make good money.
So she signed up with the agency. She would have to be open about her past, but the agency assured her that as long as she could continually prove she was clean, it wouldn’t be an issue.
When Anna was matched with a couple, her past didn’t seem to put them off. But 6 months into the pregnancy, the wife had a change of heart and didn’t want a child that came from someone like Anna. So the surrogacy was abandoned, and Anna was left with no money and pregnant with twins.
She knew there was no way she could raise them, so she put them up for adoption. But Anna had grown tired of a life full of knockbacks and couldn’t carry on anymore. Just a month after the twins were placed up for adoption, Anna passed away.
Marcus was left reeling from the news that Anna had died. He tried his best to save her and protect her, but he’d ultimately failed. He wished more than anything that Anna hadn’t felt like she needed to leave him. He would have helped her work through anything.
But now he had two very important parts of her to look after: George and Jack. When Anna’s auntie found out about Marcus and the adoption, she couldn’t believe the miracle that had happened and asked if she could be a part of the twins’ lives.
Marcus, of course, agreed. More people to love the twins was good enough for him. From that moment on, Marcus knew that the twins would always be surrounded by people who loved them and that in time they would learn all about what a wonderful person their mother was.
Marcus had a unique connection to Anna, and he couldn’t wait to tell his sons all about her when they were old enough to understand.
Marcus would give anything to have Anna back and to show her life had worked out. But for as long as he lived, he vowed to keep the memory of her alive..CONTINUE READING>>
