As the eldest child born to a single mother, I was parentified at a young age. On the weekends when my mother worked as a nurse at the local hospital and all I wanted to do was be a kid, I was responsible for my younger brother and sister. That included everything from getting them dressed to feeding them and making sure they were safe. Growing up, I became increasingly more and more convinced that I never wanted children of my own. Instead, I concentrated on establishing a career and experiencing a life that did not include children. That was until I met and married Luis. Then a shift occurred, and my heart expanded to embrace the possibility. What unfolded next, over the course of many years, was an emotional and spiritual journey to conceive a child that required me to look into the depths of my very soul and ultimately to get real with God. In The Gentle No: Wanting What Wasn't for Me, the reader is invited to experience a pivotal time in my life while considering this question: "What happens if you never get the thing that you have waited and prayed for?" Through disappointment and heartbreak, this is a story that stands firmly on Romans 8:28: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."