I rested my head against his shoulder.
For months, I had believed that the most extraordinary part of my story was the number of children I carried.
I was wrong.
The extraordinary part was what happened after the numbers stopped adding up.
A mother refused to stop asking questions.
A father refused to accept that one of his children might remain unaccounted for.
And the truth finally emerged because they would not allow anyone to turn their babies into numbers on a page.
I had wanted a quiet life, a peaceful home, and healthy children.
Life had given me a beginning I could never have imagined.
But when I looked at the nine little faces sleeping in their beds, I understood something I would remember forever.
A family is not defined by the number of children it contains, nor by the mystery surrounding their arrival. It is defined by the love that refuses to abandon even one of them.
