Today, many families will set aside time to pay tribute to the mothers in their lives. All mothers deserve honor — not just on Mother’s Day, but daily. Yet for birthmothers, this honor is sometimes withheld, and today’s celebrations can be just another painful reminder of the lack of recognition and the decision to place.
I asked adoptive parents to help me honor birthmothers on Mother’s Day by writing letters. The families who participated penned beautiful words of love, encouragement, honor and gratitude to the women who made the adoption of their child or children possible. They have agreed to share a piece of their relationship to these women and their hearts with us. Click the links below to jump down to the corresponding letter, or scroll through the page to read them all.
Although the adoptive parents wrote these words to specific birthmothers, I hope their sentiments will be felt in the hearts of all of us who have placed a child and are spending today without him or her.
Happy Mother’s Day.
To the Birthmothers of Jadon, and Micah
Dear Auntie Liz,
Because of you and your loving heart and heroic actions, I get to celebrate Mother’s Day as a Mommie. I have a son that says, “Mama” and he’s talking to me! Because of the loving decision you made to carry him to term and place him with us, we are a family that is complete! Tommy means to world to us! I never knew this type of love until the first moment I saw him. The day he was born, a new love was birthed in my heart, the love of a mother – the love only a mother knows. It’s indescribable and so real.
I want to thank you for this beautiful little boy that you have allowed us to love and raise as our son. Tommy will always know you and he will always know how much you love him. You are part of our family for life. I thank the Lord for you, Auntie Liz, and I know your life is full of purpose and determination. I admire you and the heroic choices you’ve made. You are a beautiful young woman and I’m proud that we are family. And I’m so proud of YOU!
I love to watch you grow and mature and I look forward to what your bright future holds. Words can never describe nor can I properly articulate just how much I love you and am forever grateful for you. You are Tommy’s birthmother, you carried him in your womb. You took care of him when he was growing inside you, and your decision to place him with us is the most loving, selfless act you could have done for him.
Thank you for being so special, so loving, and just so awesome!
Love,
Sherri
Dearest LaToya,
We love you! You are such an incredible woman, honestly we are amazed at how blessed we are to be a part of your story and have you be a part of ours! On this Mother’s Day of 2016, we want to honor you. We have been given the most beautiful gift in our daughter and love seeing her shining personality emerging that daily reminds us of you. She is a wonderful reflection of your quiet strength, kindness, compassion and beauty. These last 3 years with her have brought our lives such joy! We love having a relationship with you and sharing our lives. It is so wonderful being connected with you and the rest of the family. It always makes our hearts leap with gratitude for the gift of going through this adventure together. LaToya, you are and will always be a reminder to us of what true love looks like. Thank you for everything! Happy Mother’s Day to one of the greatest women alive!
With all our love,
Noah and Katie
Dear Lauren,
We’ve never met, but I can tell so much about you from the amazing child you created. He is sweet, funny, thoughtful, and loving; and I know you must be, too. He loves animals and smiles and waves at everyone who passes by; I know he must get that from you. He brings us so much joy; you gave that gift to us. You are a hero to us.
This Mother’s Day, and every day, we celebrate you as the person who gave him life, and who made our family complete. We honor you for your love, your heart, and your sacrifice. And we pray that one day, when you’re ready, we can hug you in person and tell you how much we love you and care about you, and how grateful to you we are.
I hope you feel loved, appreciated, celebrated, and honored today!
Happy Mother’s Day with love,
Jenni
Two letters from the same family:
To the Birthmother of Jadon,
You will never know how deeply we feel gratitude for you and your sacrifice to make our family grow. Jadon has been one of the best, biggest, most wonderful blessings we could have ever asked for. The time we shared with you at his birth is forever a treasured memory for us. You were so gracious to allow us to be present, cut the cord, and begin loving Jadon from the moment he was born. I remember Taco Bell burritos and sitting on your hospital bed while we passed him around and coo’d over his perfect little face. He still is the most beautiful boy ever. He turns 6 this year. Six years that we have been privileged to be his parents. Six years that you have been his birth mom. We know you have loved him from afar and miss him. We know you wish you could have given him more. But please know that you gave him so much when you gave him our home. You give him so much by being able to visit and talk with him. We have valued our open adoption these past six years, and we hope it continues into the forever future. Jadon has two amazing families who love him so much. Thank you. It is all because of you. You are amazing.
To the Birthmother of Micah,
Our families have seen 3.5 years of amazing visits and fun times. We’ve told so many people that if you lived closer, we’d probably be friends. Thank you for choosing to make us Micah’s parents. We couldn’t have asked for a better son! He completes our family. He is such a joy and has a huge personality! He has an amazing sense of humor and makes us laugh daily. He is outgoing and makes tons of friends wherever he goes. He has a huge heart, and has been such a snuggler and hugger his whole life. He brightens my day and I can’t imagine life without him. Thank you for making a difficult decision. I can’t ever show my gratitude enough. We love you guys.
Sincerely,
Daniel & Carrie
Dear Jessica,
Although we have not met, I feel like I know a little part of you as I look into the eyes of Isaac. Almost 3 years ago, you made the most difficult decision in choosing adoption for Isaac and specifically choosing me. With your choice, you gave me the privilege and blessing of being his mom. Our sweet little boy joins our hearts together forever. I am beyond grateful for you choosing me to be Isaac’s mom.
I can’t begin to imagine how you feel as Mother’s Day approaches but I want you to know that I cherish you and will continue to honor you as Isaac grows. As he grows, I will show him how I respect you and am grateful for you.
Happy Mother’s Day from Isaac’s family.
Dear Samuel’s Birthmother,
Happy Mother’s Day! Today is the day where we honor our mothers — and in Samuel’s case, he not only honors me but you, as well. We thank you for the gift of the life that you brought into this world. And we are so grateful that you chose us to be Samuel’s parents. We pray that we may live up to the calling of being good and loving parents to him.
We are also grateful for your openness towards us. It’s such a good thing that Samuel has had many opportunities to see and visit with you and your extended family over the years. We look forward to our visits, to catching up, to letting Samuel play with all the kids and for him to get to know his birth family better.
We were excited to hear about this blog, and were eager to honor the unique role you have in Samuel’s life. As Samuel grows older and has more questions, we are glad that he will be able to talk with you. Recently, he has had more questions and we’ve done our best to answer them as best we can. But we are so glad for him that he will always have that contact with you.
We leave you with this prayer: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit… so that Christ may dwell in your heart[s] through faith.
Our love,
Kurt, Karyn, and Samuel
Dear Nathan’s Birthmother,
Happy Mother’s Day! Today is the day where we honor our mothers — and in Nathan’s case, he not only honors me but you, as well. We thank you for the gift of the life that you brought into this world. We are so grateful for the honor of being Nathan’s parents. We pray that we may live up to the calling of being good and loving parents to him.
We are eager for the opportunity of visits with you! Who knows what unique characteristic, facial expression or preference of Nathan’s will stem from his birth family? It will be a joy for us to hear your opinion of such matters and to make those birth family connections.
We were excited to hear about this blog, and were eager to honor the unique role you have in Nathan’s life. We know that this day can be a hard one, especially when one no longer has one’s own mother — this will be our first Mother’s Day without one of our mothers. We pray that your day will be brightened knowing the importance you have in Nathan’s life — now and all the more as he grows older. We tell Nathan every night before bed that you love him.
We leave you with this prayer: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit… so that Christ may dwell in your heart[s] through faith (Ephesians 3:16-17).
Our love,
Kurt, Karyn, and Nathan
Dear Amanda,
The blessing of a boy AND a girl was beyond our ability to even hope for but you have made it possible for our deepest desire to parent multiple children come true. While we are overwhelmed with thankfulness for this blessing we also understand that it would be a difficult decision to place children into an adoption plan and we can see how being a single parent would be daunting, as well; even parenting as a couple is challenging. Thank you for entrusting Elaine and Aaron, a very precious commodity, into our care. We love them very much and will move heaven and earth to make sure they have every resource we can provide for their success. There are many friends and family who have walked through this journey with us and are completely invested in loving them. Before we even got them home from the hospital, there were rooms filled with clothes, diapers, car seats and every possible thing needed that people had sent. They shared our story with others and the testimony of God’s double blessing for us has reached thousands and touched many hearts. One thing you can always be sure of is that they are loved by many people. Aaron and Elaine are growing so fast and getting stronger day by day. Each day they do something new that delights and we can’t wait to see what the next day brings. Thank you for trusting us with two amazing bundles of joy.
All our love,
Rich & Heather
Dear Alex,
Thank you for your selfless gift, for choosing life for this precious boy. Your love for Samuel is apparent as he continues to blossom into a beautiful child of God. He’s perfect in every way! He loves Curious George, cars and playing outside. But most of all, he loves his big brother and won’t let him out of his sight for long. He’s “daddy’s little man” and brightens up every time daddy comes into the room.
Samuel will grow up knowing how much his birthmother is loved and how special you are to our family. We are so thankful that you want to continue to be a part of his life. We know in the future he will want to cultivate a special relationship with you.
We hope and pray that God continues to direct your life and use you in ways you never imagined possible. You are a beautiful young woman with a heart full of compassion and love.
With love and prayers,
Samuel’s forever family
Dearest Most Precious Nara,
It was almost 6 years ago you were faced with the most difficult decision of your life. We can’t begin to imagine the array of emotions you must have been going through. However, you found the courage and strength to find a family for the baby growing inside you. You chose to consider her above yourself, you chose to sacrifice your own wants by putting her needs first, you chose us as her parents, and you chose to surrender to the Lord’s will in a very hard hour of your life.
It is with a heart full of gratitude, honor, and respect we say, Happy Mother’s Day to you! Every day we look at our daughter and we are still in awe of how the Lord knitted us together as a family. She is a treasure to us, makes us laugh, is full of joy, and loves people! It is without a doubt we are seeing pieces of YOU shine through her amazing life! Thank you will never be enough to express our deepest gratitude for your decision for adoption. Evangeline is being raised knowing her birth mommy is dear and precious to us.
Nara, we love you and wish you a most glorious Mother’s Day! May your heart overflow knowing what a precious creation and treasure you are to us and more importantly to Christ.
Our deepest respect and thankfulness to you!
Eric, Anna, Evangeline
To the Birthmother of Erika,
Happy Mother’s Day. Each day we look at our daughter and we’re so thankful for you. Your selfless love has had a profound impact on our family. As we continue to tell Erika her story, we will speak highly of you and the sacrifices that you made. We pray that God will guide you, protect you and show you just how valuable you are to Him.
We love you.
Brian and Lindy
Happy Mother’s Day, Emily. You are truly honored and loved, today and always!
These all touched my heart. I see and feel God here.