For 10 years, my wife and I have been living the adoption dream. After we had endured the anguish of infertility for years, God blessed us with three angels from Guatemala — Anthony (10), Eliana (almost 8) and Catherine (5 as of a week ago).

“Anthony will always be the one I cried and prayed for,” Kimberly said soon after we brought our son home. “He’s the one who filled the emptiness in my life.” And Elli and Catie filled my quiver, making our family complete. Our children are the happy ending to our adoption story.

But the rest of that story, the part involving the emptiness of children who do not know their birth parents, has not been lived. I was reminded of that unwritten chapter today when reading about our friends, Rick, Pam and Scottie Reynolds.

I’ve blogged about Scottie before. He is the star of Villanova’s basketball team. But more relevant to our family, he is adopted — and he has struggled with the emotions of loving his parents yet wanting to know his birth mother. That’s the story USA Today told.

There are two chapters to his life, Reynolds says. The first embodies his adoptive parents, who are fixtures at his games and in everyday life. “My parents made me the young man I’m becoming today,” he says.

The second chapter — about his biological mother — has tugged at Reynolds since he was a child. “I know that one day, both my mothers will be sitting together watching me play basketball,” he says. “I think it will be one of the significant things in my life.”

As an adoptive parent and friend of the Reynolds family, I found it emotionally difficult to get through parts of the article. It both tugged at my heartstrings and made me angry.

I cringed when I read that Scottie cried until midnight after fourth-grade classmates made hurtful comments about adoption. And like his coach, Jay Wright, I wanted to “go after somebody,” at least verbally, when I heard that childish fans of Villanova opponents sometimes taunt Scottie about his adoption to try to rattle him.

Scottie’s story was a stark reminder that while Kimberly and I have our happy ending, our children one day may go searching emotionally for theirs. I hope we will be as wise as Rick and Pam Reynolds when that day comes. And I hope our children will be as thoughtful and cool-headed as Scottie.