To My Son’s Birth Mother: You have no idea what you’ve done.
THANK YOU.
The moment you decided that you would carry the unborn baby until full term despite how scared you must’ve felt, you couldn’t have known how much you’d change the world of two complete strangers whom you didn’t know even existed. How much you’d fill our hearts that were struggling to hold on to faith; nearly 15 years of waiting and disappointments that our prayers went unanswered were almost unbearable. (Those years were 5,372 in days; each day was harder than the previous.)
I cannot imagine how scared and alone you must’ve felt when you learned that you were unexpectantly pregnant. You had choices, and you chose to carry the baby to term at 37 weeks and he was born healthy at 7 pounds, 19¾ inches long, with blond hair and blue eyes. I still carry with me your only request to us was to let Baby know that you didn’t give him away… you gifted him to us because you wanted a different life for him that you didn’t know you could provide at the time. That your love for him is why you made the difficult choice to have us adopt him as our own. You will always be a part of him because you gave him life… You gave him a chance to grow up and become whoever he wants to be. You had choices and you chose to save his life. But, what you couldn’t possibly have known then is that you also saved our lives. You gave us the greatest gift we could ever have wished for and helped our hearts beat again.
I see you whenever I look at his alabaster skin, silky blond-sometimes-red hair, and slate-blue eyes. He’s growing so fast and reminds me that he will be tall just like you, which means we are getting shorter when we’re already short Asians. ;) I see you when he crawls or walks in to my arms and I embrace him for us both, always. I see you in his eyes when he gives the widest and biggest laughs that make his eyes disappear, just like you. He’s yours. He’s mine. We’re his mothers. We are forever bound together you and I, you are always in our thoughts and prayers. Thank You for allowing us the privilege to name him. When we chose his name, it actually came to us and we knew right then and there it was the most perfect name for him and for us to honor you.
Our son turns one in a few days… I’m running out of words to fully express everything I’ve felt this past year because there really are no words. Even as I write this post it doesn’t speak how my heart truly feels. How unbelievably humbled I feel to have received the gift of your heart in the form of this most beautiful child whom we call Oliver. When he’s sleepy, he reaches out for me and I cradle his little body next to my heart every night caressing his soft blond hair until he drifts off to sleep. Let my arms also be yours in knowing that he’s safe, healthy, and will never not know how much you love him like we do.
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