Hi,
I feel very similar to our BM.  She was just young and in college also and she is the sweetest young woman.  I feel like she is part of our family now.  We see her every 3-4 months.  Our son is almost 11 months now and she sends him presents for every holiday we’ve had so far.  The Sunday before mother’s day is actually birthmother’s day (I read that somewhere), so it would be appropriate to do something for her then.  She always tells me she feels happy knowing that her baby is happy and healthy and in a loving family.  My heart still breaks for her and the selfless decision she made but I know she is secure in her decision and is comforted knowing he is with us and that she can see him whenever she wants.

Just read another post on here ... Memoirs of a Birthmother….I have tears in my eyes still.  I had to stop reading because the lines were too blurry to finish!  :(

I have felt many of the feelings that you are feeling now.  We have two children that are adopted (ages 4 years and 7 months).  From my experience, it has gotten easier over time, especially as the birth moms start to move forward with their own lives.  Both of our adoptions are very open with visits, phone calls, letters, web chats, etc.  It has helped me to see that both of our birth moms as well as our son’s birth father all feel at peace with the decision that they made. It has helped them to be able to see how happy the kids are in the life that they chose for them. 

We gave our daughter’s birth mom a Shutterfly Album of our daughter’s first year for the first Mother’s Day.  She loved that.  Each year, we have chosen something sentimental to give to her that has to do with our daughter.  On our daughter’s birthday, we have always sent her birth mom flowers and I know she loves that.  On other holidays, we try to pick something that is more about the birth mom herself, so that she knows we love her for who she is and not just as our daughter’s birth mom. 

This year, we purchased birth mother necklaces for both of our birth moms.  I purchased them on Etsy from a company that was created by a group of adoptive moms.  They have some great ideas.  I purchased the “Birth Mother Ribbon Necklace”.  They are beautiful and I can’t wait to give them!  This is the link to the shop on Etzy
http://www.etsy.com/shop/therhouse?ref=ss_profile

Good Luck!  I do think it does get easier over time.

Thank you for your post.  I can definitely relate. And thank you, Jeff and Kerry, for your reassuring response that it does get easier.  My daughter is 6 months old, and I do think of her birthmom to varying degrees every day.  Like others in the post, we have a very open adoption with frequent visits and pictures.  My daughter’s birthmom is a wonderful and powerful young woman, who I love both as my daughter’s birthmom and as a person. She is becoming almost like a sister to me, in a way. 

I have definitely felt all the things that you describe. It is very difficult having your greatest joy be someone else’s greatest loss. Especially when it is someone you feel so connected to.  I felt so guilty during the weeks leading up to our daughter’s birth that I literally made myself sick.  Sometimes, I still cannot get over how I have someone in my life who I owe so much.  It is unbelievable.  When I start to feel guilty or undeserving or uncomfortable, I try to remember the following things:

-When I was so overwhelmed with sadness about her loss, I called our adoption socialworker to talk to her about it, and I will never forget what she said to me, “I think you need to remember how relieved (birthmom) was when she found you. You need to remember that this is an empowering decision for her.”  And I know both things are true.  This was profoundly her choice, and we made it possible for her to go through with that choice as she wished.  She knew we were her baby’s parents.

- I remember that, while I feel so endebted to her, I know that she feels the same way about us for taking care of her little angel.  I also find comfort in the fact that we have opened our hearts, our home, and our lives up to her, so that she can watch her baby grow surrounded by love, and build a relationship with her.  That is no small thing.

- The best and only way that I can take care of our child’s birthmom is to take care or my daughter.  Sometimes, when I think about her birthmom, I take the opportunity to tell my daughter that her birthmom loves her, too.  I know that she would love to be able to tell her herself everyday.

Hi,

I understand how you feel about the Birth Mom.  Our adoption is also semi-open and we had hoped to have her in our lives with visits.  Unfortunately, that is not the case, as her family was not aware of the adoption plan and was not supported of the pregnancy.  It saddens me to think how difficult it was for her and we were blessed that she chose our family to be our son’s forever family.

I think about her everyday too and am forever grateful for making such a difficult decision.  I have photos of her when we received our son and show our son the pics and talk about her with love.  He will know how much she loves him and how selfless she was in her decision to place him in our home. 

We had some phone contact initially and the last call, I realized she was not able to talk freely.  The last email I did receive she wrote how difficult it was to make the decision, but after seeing all the pics we sent, knows she made the right decision and knows he is loved.  I cherish that last piece of communication and felt at ease.

I continue to send her pics and emails and hope one day she will be able to develop a relationship with our son.  We are connected through him and we love her for the greatest gift in the Universe…an opportunity to be a parent to our sweet boy.

Every Mother’s Day, I give thanks to her for making me a Mom.  I honor all mothers.

Happy Mother’s Day.

The posters here sound considerate, which is wonderful, but not everyone is like that. A whole brouhaha started on a thread since closed down when the OP posted that “our birthmother” changed her mind (ie, she was a natural mother who kept her child, and wasn’t the OP’s birthmother at all) and hence ensured a discussion of “our” birth mothers, “betrayal,” “after all we did for her” and so on, as well as advice to go to states in which the baby could be swiftly removed from the mother so that she wouldn’t have much time to decide whether to parent.
This was my first foray into this website and it shook me to the core. I can’t imagine how horrible it must be to have surrendered a child to these nasty people. I’ve also seen posts that talk about the birthmother is giving the afamily a “gift) when, no, she really doesn’t want to give you her child as a present, she wants to give her child the gift of a loving and stable home. I’ve also seen people post that they are thinking of making an arrangement with the birthmother that they may feel they have to go back on later (ie., lie and do whatever you need to do in order to get her child and then do what you want once you legally can’t be touched) and posts about how horrible it is that an expectant mother’s family “jumps in” in order to support her in keeping her child.
This isn’t stuff I’m making up—this is stuff that has been posted here by adopters and wannabe adopters. Not all, thank goodness, but enough make someone have serious doubts about whether adoption as it presently exists should be allowed in this country,

Well said, Patsymae! We quit working with 2 agencies who suggested we tell expectant mothers what they wanted to hear- that we wanted fully open immediately- before finalization, and were very religious people. We went with an agency who encouraged complete honesty and promoted semi-open moving to more open and left it to both families to find where they are comfortable-  we felt more comfortable with the agency’s ethical stance towards honesty with expectant mothers and the fact that they noted that while adoptive parents are not legally obligated to keep up with updates and communication, they are morally and ethically obligated…I wish more agencies had these standards…it is still not perfect but far better than those that don’t have an ethical approach to expectant mothers…if adoption agreements were legally enforceable that might be a start…
I also think about our birth mother daily- she is a lovely woman and right now I am respecting her wishes for some distance- I think remembering her on Mother’s Day with a card or gift would be painful for her so for now I will just send an extra update and pictures this month…

Mel, I’m so happy you did what you did. And I agree, adoption agreements should be legally enforceable. That they are not comes as a surprise to many, including expectant mothers who make open adoption agreements or are thinking of them.
Closing down adoption agencies and brokers and leaving the process to social service agencies that provide an array of services to an entire community is another step I would like to see.