approaching one year since welcoming her into this world

One year ago we were being prepped by Julia's birthmother to expect her to make it to her induction date of the 27th. She was overdue by a few days at this point in time and didn't feel much going on. I'll have to go back one year and read my posts from then.

We are working on hosting a party at my sisters house for Julia's party Saturday on Julia's Birthday to celebrate. We invited (mostly family) 63 people and only asked for regrets. Guess what. NO REGRETS given.

BIGGEST NEWS, Julia's birthmother called us to make sure we knew she wanted to come to Julia's party(we sent an invite to her directly). I was so happy to hear from her and in the short few minutes we got to chat, she sounded so upbeat and very very busy with school and work. I can't wait to see Julia's birth siblings.

I asked DH to prep a letter to H for the last 4 months since we had last written a letter and given pictures to her at our last meet up. So much has happened in the last 4 months that I am excited to share these milestones with her. I hope DH doesn't get mad if I inject some of those milestones if he doesn't mention them. Like when she got her first two teeth, when she said Dada and when she said HOT after I was teaching her that the stove is HOT HOT HOT. hehe

Lets see, we got a full refund for the pictures we had taken at Sears. The lady could not believe we ended buying these and they looked so bad (we had not realized they looked that bad (snot nose and scratch on face) until Dh picked them up. The lady offered us a free sitting and discount on the next group we take. I think we will take her back in thise same outfit to mark the 1 year date of her Beautiful life.

Happy 10 month Birthday my baby girl..thinking of her birthmother too

This morning I woke up early at 5:30 am and fed the doggies. I did not want to wake our little princess, Julia, instead I let her sleep in. Well that lasted about another 25 minutes or so. LOL. I think she has a built in alarm clock sometimes that follows her from her normal weekday routine into Saturday and Sunday's when we are home. As I type this at 8:19 am, she is sleep in daddy's arms while they sit on the couch and DH watches Meet-the-Press with the Democratic Presidential candidate.

When Julia first got up this morning she and I went back into our bed and she promptly woke her daddy up by calling "Dada" and hitting him on the back. He rolled over and snuggled with her for a few minutes. I said, "Happy 10th month Birthday Julia". He looked at me and said, "I still sometimes can't believe I am a daddy". So sweet. It is really a blessing that we have her in our lives and she has completed our desire to become parents. All thanks given to her birthmother for making this possible. (And our friend C that put us in contact with Julia's birthmother.)

Speaking of her birthmother, I hope she is doing ok today. I wonder if these little monthly birthday reminders make her hurt (emotionally), or do they make her happy knowing she placed Julia with us? I sure hope it makes her happy. In fact, she has told us she is so lucky to have us in her life to have an open adoption relationship. She always promptly gives us a hug when we see each other in person and always whispers "Thank you" in our ears! That melts my heart. I know we have offered for her to see a counselor, but she has not taken us up on the offer and I don't push it every time we see her. I tell her I am so proud of her and so thankful for her in our lives and we can't wait until the next time we see her and her two kiddo's. (J's half birthsister and birthbrother.). I don't have a direct way to get in contact with H so we have to go through mutual friends to get a gathering set up. I do know where she lives, but I feel as though I am intruding in on her life if we just drop by. I do keep writing my letters and gathering pictures together to give to her each time we have a "family" meeting. She is always so thankful for them and this last time I gave her the envelope, I did ask her to open it to view the pictures and share them with everyone, but I told her to read the letter later if she rather not read it at that time out loud. She put the letter in her pocket and then sat with J's birthsister and they had a blast looking at the pictures. I usually give them between 15-25 pictures with each of her letters. These average about 1 letter every 3-4 months.

This brings me to a article I read recently on the adoptive Families website. I wanted to share this link with you so you could get a perspective of just a few emotions a birthmother can go through before and after birth.
It is called, "When Birthmoms Get the Blues"
http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=1742

I always think of H and her feelings, especially just after we have all met up in person. I say a prayer that she may feel at peace with her decision to have placed J with us and that she is able to use this peace to boost her self-esteem and keep moving forward no matter how tough it can get. She is busy with her children, but I know she is always thinking of J also.

How have you dealt with your child's birthmother/parents contact and emotions after having adopted? Do you send letters & pictures to the agency? Or do you see them in person and give them the letters and pics then?


this as last week when we went to the zoo. Daddy made her a Build-a-Bear Leopard, but she was fast asleep through the whole thing. LOL

This was a few days ago when she was trying to help me fold clothes. The only way I could keep her from pulling the clothes out of the basket and onto the floor was to put her in there with the clothes. She loved it. Reminds me of when I was a youngster and we used laundry baskets to slide down the 3 story house steps we had. Oh boy, I hope she never tries that in a laundry basket.

Birthmother visit and letter writing.

In an open adoption, adoptive parents and the birthparents can tend to agree to open terms (not written terms ) of when visits can happen by either party or when letters and pictures can or will be sent. So today, after a near 3 month no contact time frame) we met up with Julia's birthmother at her friends house. We also got to see Julia's two birth siblings, her birthgrandma and the friends and their daughter who hosted the gathering. We all had so much fun.

A week ago, we knew we would be meeting up with all of them and I felt a little nervous about it, but today I was not nervous at all. More curious of how things would play out this whole evening. They went better than expected and lots of pictures were taken. (For Privacy reasons, I won't post those pictures on here.) I will always cherish these moments and pictures as we can tell Julia as she grows up who each of them are and how much they mean to her and DH & I. This gift Julia's birthmother gave us the best gift any couple could ask for in their dreams of being able to become parents. Especially after 5 miscarriages, two ectopic pregnancies and many heartaches throughout the 8 years of infertility and losses.

What a joy adoption can be and is for us. Julia's birthmother made the most unselfish decision to make an adoption plan for Julia and we were blessed to have been the couple she selected and felt would be able to care for and raise Julia to the best of our ability. That was not an option for Julia's mother at that time in her life while pregnant with her and up to delivery. But she reaffirmed this belief and feeling with us tonight when she hugged us goodnight and said she was so thankful for us in her life. I whispered back into her ear that we are so thankful for her in our lives too. Sometimes that frequency of seeing each other can be months away, but we know she thinks about Julia every day and night. I know she talkes to her kids about Julia and us and how we are able to provide Julia with a great home to grow up in. It is amazing how loving the birthsiblings are with Julia too. We got some good bonding time with them both and really enjoyed catching up on how they are doing with school and such. They are so beautiful and we are so lucky to have them in our lives to share with the milestones of Julia's growth.

Today I sat down and wrote our second letter to Julia's birthmother(bm). I wanted to do this a month ago, but with being sick I slacked off a little. Julia's bm did not mind it being late and was actually very thankful for me having brought the letter along with 15 or so pictures to give to her directly. Last time I wrote the letter was when Julia was 2 months old. We had not talked to her(bm) for a while so I had sent the letter off to the agency to send it to her when she was ready emotionally to handle reading it and seeing the pictures. This was during a time when we did not converse or see her in person for a while. I did not want to make her wait for the agency to contact her to see if she was ready for the letter and pictures so I brought them with us tonight and gave them to her. They LOVED the pictures and she said she would save the letter for later to read in private. I totally respect her decision for doing that because I think it might make her a bit emotional reading about Julia's milestones in the last few months and felt she did not want to break down in front of everyone there.

I'll make sure I keep on top of the letter writing starting tomorrow until the end of the next two months. I'll have lots of updates for her and many milestones Julia is meeting and surpassing. It will be fun to journal them into her letter as they happen. That is my goal, to keep up on top of the writing as it happens. LOL Good luck, right?

I have these letters saved on flash drive and also copied what pictures I sent with the letter (didn't do that for the first letter and now I regret it. ). So this letter covered Thanksgiving, day after Turkey day doctors appointment, December milestones, Christmas update and her January milestones and updates. So the next letter will involve her first ever Valentines Day, First St. Patty's day celebration and parade in dogtown (I took a day of vacation in hopes that the weather is nice and she and I can go to the parade together), Easter and then court finalization in April. Oh and our first SPring 2008 camping trips.

I am glad that Julia's bm enjoys getting these updates. We are so thankful for her gift of Life in Julia and we can only begin to help return the rewards by sharing Julia's life feats with her. Thank Goodness for our connection. Thanks to Crissy for introducing us to this situation of adoption. And thanks to our agency, A Gift of Hope Adoptions for helping our birthmother through the rough times and us through the new experiences.

Another note is that we mentioned tonight that DH and I want to adopt again and we hoped it would happen in the next 5 years or so, but DH and I decided (more dh than me) last night that we would want to do that quicker than 5 years from now. More like 2 if we can find the means of funding another attempt to grow our family. Everyone was excited for us too. They know now that we want Julia to have a sister or brother and to make our family a family of 4. Ahhhh, amazing to feel that joy!

Now I need to go start the process of planning Julia's Forever Family Day celebration party for after her finalization in mid-April.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far. I want to share this with others that might still be in the process of adopting for the sake that if they choose open adoption, it can be a great sense of Joy with the amount of openness we have with our birthmother situation.


We are a family of 3, but we have such an extended family. Yes, we inherited an extended family with Julia's adoption and we welcome that through the rest of our lives. What a pure blessing. They are all family no matter who and how we got there.