When Patricia Sandoval was a little girl, she used to sit in her Petaluma, Calif., backyard and write love letters to God, tying them onto a balloon and sending them into the sky. But at age 12, life grew difficult when her parents divorced. She also had her first ever “sex talk,” but not with her mom or dad.

One day, Planned Parenthood visited Sandoval’s sixth-grade class. After a graphic presentation about sex, Sandoval remembers a female representative told the class, “If you ever need anything, we are here for you.”

A Fever, a Flight, and a Fight for the World 

J.A. Myhre

The Big Game

Tim Green

Amanda Serenyi’s father told her almost nothing about his four older children from a previous marriage. But one of them found her name on her grandmother’s obituary and then on Facebook. Then, that half sister revealed a family secret: Before Serenyi was conceived, her father had a vasectomy.

Yellow Kayak 

Nina Laden

The Penderwicks at Last 

Jeanne Birdsall

On their first date, Patrick and Dorothy Yeung talked at a Mexican restaurant for six hours. They even discussed marriage, and found they shared a desire for “as many kids as God would give,” Patrick says.

But four years into the Yeungs’ marriage, Dorothy still hadn’t conceived, although she and her husband yearned for children.

Doctors told the St. Louis, Mo., couple that their only hope for biological children was in vitro fertilization (IVF), a process they opposed as Catholics. The Yeungs began to pursue adoption, but still wanted answers about their infertility.