A Letter

Dear Y,

(Y is R's birthmother.)

As R gets closer to her 2nd birthday and we get closer to returning to Ethiopia, the more you are on my mind.

First, I need to apologize. You asked me to send you pictures. I haven't been good about that recently, and I don't really know why. After all, you gave me your daughter so I could be a mother. And pictures, I take tons. There is really no excuse for not sending them to you. I am so sorry. I promise you here and now that I will send some to our agency on Monday. (And, please, those of you actually reading this, please, please hold me accountable for that.)

Second, R is growing more and more every day. She is amazing. She is funny, she loves to dance, and she has started singing lately. She has a little bear named Beary whom she takes with her everywhere. She is growing tall, and she is more and more beautiful each day. She makes everyone who meets her love her. I think she gets that from her birthmother.

Today we went to a "home for a year" celebration another ET adoptive family held to mark their one year "Family Day." Their little daughter is one month younger than R, and the 2 of them had fun dancing around to the African drum group the mom had come to entertain the kids. I'm doing what I can to build strong connections to other Ethiopians for R. I think it is so important, and I know you would, too.

I was thinking all day yesterday about when we met you. There are so many things I wish I had said to you and had asked you. And I think you feel the same. I wish so much that the director would have allowed us to talk to you again when you returned after our brief meeting was over. I wish I wouldn't have listened to her insistence that we leave right away so you didn't see us still there. I wish I would have ran over and hugged you. I wish we could have spent more time together. I wish we would have taken more pictures of you with R for her and for you. I wish..... a million things.

I hope so much that when we return to ET to bring our second daughter home that we can see you again. I asked our case manager about it months ago, and she said that was something we'd talk about when the time got closer. Of course, R will not be there, but there are so many things I want to say to you and to ask you.

Please know that I love R so much that I feel I might burst sometimes. Know that there is not a day that goes by in which I do not thank God she is my daughter and thank God for your decision to allow us to adopt her. Know that I will do all I can to make certain our daughter has a good life.

There are no more words. Please, God, give me the grace to be the mother you want me to be for our daughter.
Love,
M