Reaching Beyond:
A Birthmother’s View on Writing a Great Dear Birthmother Letter
By Courtney Frey
Last year I had the wonderful opportunity to be asked to read and review Nelson Handel’s newest book, “Reaching Out,” and as I am quoted on the back cover as saying, “This is truly a wonderful tool!” Yet over the last year I have been more intricately introduced to how truly difficult it is for hopeful parents to write their letters. I have spent countless hours with many, many couples who have trusted me enough to have a “look see” at their final drafts, and with hopeful signatures to their attached e-mails I’ve read on more than one occasion, “Please tell us how our letter might make birthmothers feel.”
As a birthmother who has been faced with the task of evaluating and choosing from pictures and letters, and as one with a professional background in writing, I have taken this experience and am hopeful that you will find useful the tips and opinions that I have cultivated.
Before you read further I also encourage all of you to pick up Nelson Handel’s book, "Reaching Out". The book is truly a cutting edge, and exact science piece of literature that will be one of your greatest assets.
Introductory Lines: One of the important “rules of thumb” to remember is that the woman searching for and reading your letter is not yet a birthmother. While this is a minor play on words and yes, even though this category is commonly titled as, “Dear Birthmother Letters,” when you begin writing to “her” … use a more appropriate intro.
Example of why this is not encouraged: Intro to letter: “Dear Birthmother.” In first paragraph of letter, “We hope that you find peace and happiness in whatever you decide.”
You are placing the title “Birthmother” on her, and yet in the first paragraph are acknowledging that she has yet to really make this choice. It just doesn’t flow. And in all honestly, many prospective birthmothers re-coil at being titled birthmothers before they have become one.
Good introductory lines are often very simple such as, “Hello!”, or, “Welcome!” Intro’s that simply welcome prospective birthmother’s are the best, or even no intro at all.
Content No-no’s: “We know this is a difficult time for you.” While this statement may sound endearing to you, consider that a potential birthmother has looked at and read this statement countless times and most assuredly, it has lost its meaning. This may be difficult, but consider just for one moment how you would react if a potential birthmother said to you, “I know how difficult infertility is for you.”
“Your child,” and “Our child.” Switching possessive’s throughout your letter is a common mistake. “We are thrilled to welcome our child into our family and want you to know your child will be loved and nurtured.” Two reasons this is a mistake: 1.) Again, she is not a birthmother yet, and the child is still hers. 2.) You want to give her a sense of inclusion, that you respect the fact that the child will continue to be her “birthchild”, although will be your “child” as well. Especially if you are offering that you are willing to engage in an open adoption, you don’t want to make this kind of blunder. The best way to avoid this is to refer to the child as her child. Only when writing about the future relationships that you hope to have with her should you refer to her child as “our” child.
In Closings: References to the birthmother being a “hero” or an “angel” should be avoided. Writing anything that reflects the suggestion that you would be complete with a child should also be avoided. These kinds of statements put unnecessary pressure on potential birthmothers. If you call her a hero, she will feel obligated to “be” a hero. And if you write that having a child would make you complete, she will be operating in a sense of obligation and guilt. It is very overwhelming for potential birthmothers to read about infertility again and again and to hear that “her” baby could make so many people happy. It is best to avoid these kinds of statements.
*See inclusions below for more advice on closings.
Examples of edits in letters that I have had the opportunity to help with:
Dear Birthmother,
We are grateful that you want to get to know us and we want you to know that we have the greatest respect for your courage and sacrifice during such a difficult time in your life. We know that this must be a challenging time in your life. We feel that if our paths cross, and you choose us, we could very well be one another’s answer to prayer.
Edited Version:
Hello!
We are *John and *Jane, and we are excited at the opportunity to share our lives and ourselves with you through this letter. We cannot begin to imagine how difficult taking this path might be for you, and we can only hope that our letter might provide some encouragement and hope as you travel this way. Should you decide to stay a while and get to know more about us, we can only pray that it will result in a life-long answer to prayer for all of us.
Why I did the edits I did:
First, using the term “grateful” is not recommended. Also, using the terms courage and sacrifice aren’t going to get any plusses. Assuming one “knows” the difficult challenge a potential birthmother faces is, well, “Ouch!” And lastly, *John and *Jane had a great thought process with the “answer to prayer” but just couldn’t word it so that it didn’t come off as making the birthmother feel obligated.
*names have been changed
“Our commitment to our child is one filled with love and nurturing and we promise that he/she will always know of the love and courage of his/her biological family.”
Edited Version:
We are committed to offering this child a life of unconditional love and constant nurturing. We believe that he/she should always know and feel your love and we will do everything we can to make sure of that.
Why I Did the Edits I Did:
First, “our child,” is a possessive and has yet to take place. Also, “promising” anything in a letter isn’t recommended. The other no-no is using the term “biological family” … yikes. Not a good reference to the woman who is quite possibly carrying your future child.
As you can see, making minor adjustments in regards to technical writing can make all the difference in your letter.
Inclusions of Openness/Future Relationship
Certain details about your lives, who you are, what your families are like are always important. But one of the most over-looked inclusions to dear birthmother letters is how you foresee your future with the birthmother herself. Many letters have added, at the end, “We are open to letters and pictures and visits if that is what you want,” but rarely is more said. Obviously, I would never encourage an adopting couple to include any kind of commitment that they truly aren’t prepared to follow through with, but at the same time, there are those of you who are open and hoping for more and yet do not utilize that. In this day and age … do not fear that! Many, many, birthmothers are looking for open relationships. If this is something you have been counseled on, if this is something that you have prepared yourself for ~ include that! It is a part of your journey into adoption, and will be a part of your life with your child even more so than how much your nieces and nephews adore you. I encourage you to include this.
One birthmother, during the time she was looking at profiles, said this to me, “It’s so hard, I see all these great couples but then I get to the end of the letter and still there’s nothing about the future of a relationship between us. If they aren’t thinking about that in what’s like one of the most important interactions between us … they probably don’t fore-see a future relationship.”
In order to really get a better perspective of whether or not couples do include the prospect of a future with the birthmother, or even if it something they have thought upon, I did a bit of research. I went into a listing site and pulled, from the first ten profiles, any sentence or any type of inclusion that was written in regards to the birthmother. Out of these ten profiles I discovered seven that included comments related to the development of a future relationship or the inclusion of the birthmother in the child’s life. Three of the profiles made no comment or inclusion to either.
We will tell your baby how much he or she is loved by you as well as anything else you would like him or her to know about you.
We will also look forward to staying in touch with you and sharing pictures and information about your child.
We would also be open to sending you letters and pictures of the child's development in the future.
We will share with our child any information about you or your family that you would like.
Thank you for reading this letter.
We will cherish your baby forever and will always be grateful for what you did.
We’ve chosen open adoption to ensure that everyone involved agrees on the best future of the child.
The most important aspects of openness are having you know that your baby has a good home and that he or she grows up knowing that this decision was carefully made in their interest with love.
We would be happy to keep in touch over the years and would like to be as open as you like. We have deep respect for you and the difficult decision you are facing.
Why is this important? It is important because as a birthmother looks at the profile, she is picking up on how you feel not only about adoption, but about her. Whether or not you know it .. your words speak volumes on how you feel about adoption.
For instance, “We will share with our child any information about you or your family that you would like.” While I am sure this was written with great intention to show that this couple would be open to telling the adopted child about his/her birthfamily, from the “other” side, this is what it sounds like:
“This is our child and our family and your family are separate, but we’ll tell him/her of you if you want.” While this couple didn’t write the words, “Closed adoption”, this is very much what can be read from the words. There are birthmothers looking for closed adoptions, and this couple would be suited for that. They may be trying to write in such a way that birthmothers looking for either type of adoption would respond, but the truth is, birthmothers can read through the lines and it is better to be totally honest than try to write a letter that will appeal to all birthmothers.
“We will cherish your baby forever and will always be grateful for what you did.” This phrase is common and stands out to me. The truth is, birthmothers don’t require that you are grateful. Birthmothers know you will love your children. Birthmothers are not choosing relinquishment to bless infertile couples. Birthmothers are choosing adoption as a gift for their child. Not for you. This is difficult to grasp, but in truth, this is what is happening. YOU are the gift to our children. What many birthmothers ache to read in parent profiles is that glimpse of how you truly feel about them, because one of our biggest fears is that the adoptive parents we choose will inadvertently place any dislike or resentment of our roles onto our birth children.
Several months ago I was working with an adopting couple as they put together their dear birthmother letter. They became very frustrated and the adopting mother wrote to me, “You know, I just want to write it exactly how I feel it.” To which I told her, “Okay, do that.” In that letter, she wrote, “I am extremely afraid of openness and really don’t feel comfortable with promising visits and at this point don’t even know if I could handle writing letters and sending pictures about my child. So, I want to be totally honest and tell you that I really have no desire for any kind of future relationship with you.” The letter was long and went on to say other personal things, but the reason I had this adopting mother write her letter was because she was getting frustrated. It was good for her to write a letter just to write it.
She went on to tell me, “I’m afraid that if we don’t put something in our letter about openness, we’ll get over-looked. I don’t want that to happen, but I don’t want to mislead any birthmothers either.”
After several more attempts and several more edits, in the final letter it was decided that any reference to contact would be left out. This, in and of itself, is enough to let the birthmother know that openness is not an option with this couple.
These few suggestions are simply “technical” suggestions to keep in mind while creating your letters for potential birthparents. Writing the heart and soul of your letters is truly something only you can do, and when you are placing the very core of who you are onto paper there can truly be no wrongs. I hope that by my offering simple editing suggestions, re-phrasing, and adjusted sentence structure that you will feel confident in the presentation of your profile.
Courtney Frey and Sharon Roberts, both birthmothers, also offer professional design and editing services for hopeful parents. If you are finding the task of writing your letter or designing your profiles and websites to be overwhelming and would like help, please visit Dear Birthmother Letters
Copyright by Courtney Frey, 2002
