Dear Birth Parent

     One of the things we have to do is write a letter to the birth parent(s) to be placed on our agencies website. Parents can look through those and read a little about families and then inquire with the agency for more info.
     So, I started to read through some of the other letters to try and get an idea of what in the world I could possibly write. This has been the most challenging thing I have had to do so far. How do you talk to someone you don't know, who is considering giving you their CHILD?
     As I was reading through them for ideas, I mostly figured out what I didn't want to say. Many, many of them talk about God bringing them to this and being thankful and so on. While I believe those things to be true, and also feel them about where WE are at, I am 100% sure the birth mother does NOT. If I write how thankful I am God brought her to us, what does that tell her about God? That he did this to her? That this hard, possibly horrible, time in her life was all planned out by God? Even though I believe God has a plan, even through tough times, it is SO hard to see in the  moment. I have no idea if she is a believer and I don't want to give her the wrong impression of our great God. So I tried my best to be real with her, to empathize with her. Here is what I came up with.

Dear Birth Parent,

            Life doesn’t always go as planned does it? We’ve experienced it and I bet you are feeling that way right now. We have felt that way many times and questioned the decisions we have made. But we have come to realize they weren’t wrong decisions, just decisions that had a difficult outcome that we had to work through. And as we look back, we did the best we could.

            You are doing the best you can right now. You are trying to get the best outcome from a difficult time.  We believe that God helped us through those difficult times and that he provided us with what we needed even though it wasn’t always evident while we were going through it.

            We have been trying to have another baby for seven years. We went through fertility treatments and two miscarriages. Those times were awful. But it lead us to this place.  Now we know that this is where we are supposed to be. Adopting a baby is where all of our decisions have lead us. Hindsight allows us to be grateful for the difficult times and we pray that when this difficult time is in your past, you will be grateful for the decision that you make.

Then I wrote a little about each of us and closed with
  
    

There is a song that says “Down in the valley, dying of thirst; Now down in the valley, it seems that I'm at my worst; My consolation is that You baptize this Earth; I'm down in the valley, valleys fill first”. This song always makes me remember that the valleys bloom before the mountaintops. While we feel like we are at our lowest, God can create beauty in the valley.

             Thank you for reading about us. We pray you can see the beauty during this time.


     I pray that as we all go through the daily struggles of life that, eventually,  we can all see the beauty and the meaning.

My Gift

     Writing is not my gift. I will never be a blogger that has lots of followers the way some who are raising money for their adoption do. We have very few friends that live near us, so our only contact with many is social media. As we have shared our adoption story on social media we have been surprised, humbled, and disappointed. Some people that we thought would jump at the opportunity to help us have our baby have been silent. Some that we hardly talk to have been generous. Some that we have never met have supported us.
     Writing is not my gift. Being a mom is my gift. All I ever wanted to be was a mom. Well, there were a few other things scattered in there through out my young life, but always a mom. My baby dolls were treated as real babies. I have held every baby I could get my hands on. The day I found out I was going to be a mom was amazing, a dream come true. I took something like 3 or 4 home pregnancy tests, and called the number on the box just to make sure. Five months after Colm was born I found out I was pregnant with Moira. When she was born via c-section the doctor told me that I needed to take some time before we had another baby. That was fine with me. I had been pregnant for almost two years straight, I needed a break.
     Colm was an easy baby, happy, hardly cried. Moira was hoarse before we left the hospital from crying. She had reflux and screamed for about 9 months. I was always ready for more babies, but the screaming stayed in the forefront of Jeremy's mind a little longer than mine.
     When Moira was two we decided it was time. We never imagined we would have any trouble conceiving. After a couple of months I knew something was wrong. In December of that year we sought a fertility doctor. He ran all the tests, painful, embarrassing, and emotional tests. They found nothing wrong. I was given some medication and strict directions and all we could do was hope and pray it would work. It did. The answer to our prayers was left on our answering machine. I was pregnant. I was overjoyed, relieved, and so thankful.  The normal follow up blood tests were scheduled for a week later. Then the phone call came that changed my life forever. The number were not increasing as they should. I was going to lose the baby.
     I was devastated. This thought had never crossed my mind with this one. I was angry and more sad than I had ever been, for a long time. I was mad at God, for a LONG time, years.
     Then He healed my heart, as only He can do. I grew closer to Him than I had been in a very long time. I felt like He was leading us to try fertility treatments again. (We had tried several more times after the first loss and did not conceive again).
     I obeyed, and long story short (at least this part of the story), God provided and I conceived again, I was beyond thankful. But I felt hesitant. I knew how quickly this could be taken from me again. And it was.
     I couldn't understand. I had come to accept the first loss. I was able to help several other women who were going through a miscarriage. But a second one, I could find no meaning in that.
We had always wanted to adopt. When I was a senior in high school I read about the horrible treatment of orphans in China and I knew that I needed to adopt. I always wanted to adopt from China.
     This past fall we decided it was time to begin the process. We decided on infant domestic adoption. I still so greatly desire a baby, even though I cannot carry one within me. And domestic is the best option for getting an infant. So we set out on fundraising. I, maybe foolishly, thought that all of our friends and family that know what we have been through, know the hurt, the loss and the great desire of our hearts, would jump at the opportunity to help. Times are tough. We know that. But we CANNOT do this without you.
     You know, when you are pregnant people ask you how you are feeling, if you are excited, all sorts of questions. When you are adopting, no one brings it up. No one asks questions. Being pregnant on paper is hard. We know it is probably going to take longer than 9 months. And the idea that it may not happen at all is crippling. It would feel like another miscarriage. We pray for this baby, we pray for his or her birth mom and extended family. The kids, the kids pray.
     I don't mean for this to sound so very depressing. I just needed you all to know, if you didn't already, why we are doing what we are doing, where we are at.
     God has called all of His children to care for widows and orphans. We are trying to follow His command. 
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If God is calling you to help, you can do that on this page. If not, please pray for us and this process.