Dear Birthmother,

It is now more than seven years ago since we wrote our first letter to you. At the time you were just an abstract concept, a potential birth mother who could read our letter or maybe, if we were lucky an actual person who would be moved by our letter and hopefully get to know us enough through our letter to chose us as parents for your child.

It was the most important letter we ever have written in our whole lives.

We had no idea who would read our letter, if anyone. We chose our words so carefully, rewrote the letter over and over again. Added something, changed a word here and there. Then we picked pictures  that would represent us as a family and we hoped so much that you would see how much we would love your child, and be the loving parents to your child that you might hope for.

Now seven years have passed and we are co-parents to two of your children. Back in the day when we couldn’t have any children, we never dreamed of getting even one child, let alone three! I am so happy that you got to meet our oldest son, the son that grew in my belly, and that you liked him and were impressed by him and his manners. And that you didn’t regret your choise of us as parents, when you chose to give us yet another little child.

This time I post this letter for everyone to see, I just put it out there in cyberspace so that maybe one day if you happen to glance our way you might see my words and know that we haven’t forgotten about you and that we love you and that we talk about you with the children all the time.

Hopefully you will read my words some day. If not, at least it gives me comfort to write to you in this fashion, to put into word thoughts that circle in my mind daily both consciously and unconsciously.

The kids have grown so much! They both struggle with some things, with having had a bit of a rough start in life and the result from that, but we do our best to give them as good a childhood as possible. My husband reads to them every evening. He tucks them into bed (they both share a room at the moment – a huge, lovely genuine kids room!), reads them a story and then sits there until they are both sleeping. Then he walks across the hallway to our oldest son’s room and reads to him as well. We love reading, and we love talking to the kids about everything, which shows because they all have such a large vocabulary.

In the morning it is usually a bit noisy and chaotic at the breakfast table. Both me and my husband give the children their breakfast, help them with their clothing, give them their vitamins and then my husband drives them to school or preschool. The afternoons are really busy. I am still at home with the kids, so my whole day revolves around taking care of the house and preparing food, helping with homework and sometimes doing a craft thing or two with the kids or by myself, which I then write about on this blog. Some evenings I play the piano and we all sing a song or two. Sometimes I think about the CD with songs I gave you. I have sung each and everyone of those songs to the children, and they all love singing! I love that we are such a musically gifted family – all my three kids love to sing and they know so many songs. They all learn songs so quickly, it’s amazing!

We talk about both of you, and about South Africa, almost every day. We compare skin tones, we look at each others hair and admire each other. We talk about from where they got their eyes, their nose, their whole look. We speculate how you and your family are doing, what you are eating, how you are living. Us parents speculate a whole lot in private when the kids are asleep. About grown up things, that the kids are too small to understand yet. We talk about how the children must have felt being at the nursery. We look at pictures from our trips to South Africa and talk about how those two trips were the best vacations we ever had.

We remember you all the time, and we look forward to hopefully meeting you again some day. I so much hope we actually will meet, that life won’t put up obstacles and that in a few years time we can travel to your beautiful country and finally meet you on equal terms, as co-parents to two beautiful perfect human beings who happen to be fortunate enough to actually have two sets of parents that love them.

You are such a huge part of our lives, and even though we might never meet again we will always love you and be grateful to you for chosing us. We could never ever forget you – we are reminded of you everytime the children smile or dance or prance around happily, looking at themselves in the mirror and just laughing.

Your children – mine and yours – are loved each and every day of their lives! I am so lucky to be given the gift to get to love these children of mine, to watch them grow, to help shape them into the people they already are deep inside their core. I wouldn’t trade a single second of my life with my family, not even the bad ones. My family is everything I ever dreamed about, and much much more. And I hope when we meet one day that you will see that, that you will be happy that you chose me and my husband. I hope you’ll feel that it turned out alright and that there was a purpose to your life getting entwined with these strange pale people from the north. Then after hugs and tears and laughter and stories, maybe we would just sit on a porch, you and me, silently looking at the children we shaped together, and feel that we did good!