Dear Brit

Dearest Brit,

Usually when I sit down to write you a letter, I have something in particular in mind.  Today I do not have anything to share.  Honestly, I am writing because you have been on my mind without ceasing for weeks now.  My heart aches with love for you that I am unable to share with you in person.

I know the holidays have alot to do with that, because that is when we want to be with our extended family.  And obviously we have no interaction with you at all at this point.  Needless to say, we miss you.  We wish so desperately that we could have a visit with you during that time just so we could let you know how much we love you too.  The kind of visit that families have during the holidays.  We continue to hope and pray that someday soon that will happen.

We did send you your Christmas gifts and we hope that you got to enjoy them.  I loved picking out your outfit.  BF, J (your oldest brother) and I all went to a special store called Sparkle and spent all kinds of time looking for the perfect thing to get you.  It was funny to watch the big boys looking at tutus, sparkle shirts, tights and shoes.  For what it's worth, BF found the adorable little shoes for you and they might be my favorite part of the outfit.  He was pretty proud that he found shoes to match the crazy shirt we got you.  I hope you love them as much as we did.  They might be a little big right now, but I'm sure they are still fun for dress up.  We would sure love to see a picture of you wearing the outfit someday.

We all three laughed out loud as I picked out the bow to include with the outfit because we have never seen you with any kind of fancy hair bow, and your hair is crazy and out of control.  I had never seen a white blonde afro until we saw yours.  Your hair cracks us up every time we see a picture of it

I was also so very proud of BF again this year because he picked out your LeapPad and accessories to go with it.  He was so excited the day he brought it home because he had found online that you could download games from your favorite TV show O.omiZo.omi.  I hope your parents were able to download that for you and I also hope you like using your fancy little electronic pad.  If you ever come to visit, make sure you bring it with you because that is exactly what your brothers do all day long.  They all walk around with their i.Pads, often wearing their own headsets, playing games, or listening to music.  Now that their teachers use the iP.ads for school work, they even use them at night to do their homework.  We are a fully electronic household now!  You would fit in perfectly with your own little device. :)

The little wooden doll set that we sent to you was an impulse buy that we just loved because the character that you dress up has the same name as your middle name.  When I walked by the set in the store I immediately stopped and had to get it for you.  I hope you like dressing her up.  It sure looked like fun.

We have had lots and lots of talk about you around our house the last couple of weeks.  It makes me so happy when we say your name and talk about how we hope our future includes knowing you better.  BF and I have talked ALOT about that lately.  The boys chime in from time to time and will often ask if we have heard anything from your parents.  They too still have hope that maybe soon we might get a little more access to you and your family.  We keep praying.

So as I wrap up today, I thought I would share a few photos with you so you can know what your brothers look like right now.  LanMan and B are both 13 right now and they are as silly as can be.  I love how they are best of friends.  They crack us up every single day.  They are so much fun, and so very funny, especially when they are together.  This is a picture of the the outfits that the two of them wore to our family Christmas celebration.  They wanted to make a holiday statement.  I think they did.  Everyone got a good laugh out of it.

 D won't let me take his picture anymore.  So usually I have to sneak up on him and rarely does the picture turn out.  But this one I was able to snap of him after a basketball game last weekend.  We were at the bowling alley having a huge family gathering because my sister who lives in California was in town for a few days.

Your brother T will always let me take his picture.  This is a piggy bank that he got for Christmas.  He really likes the Kansas City Chiefs which is unfortunate since they can't seem to win games.  Maybe by the time you are older they will be a better team.  We can only hope!

This is a picture of me and 3 of my 4 sisters and our dad.  One of the girls had to work.  The girl with the red hair is the sister from California.  She's the only one who doesn't live here locally with us.  She is an  actress and singer in California.  Just this week she found out they are using a song she recently recorded in a new Disney movie coming out soon.  It has Selena Gomez in it.  We will have to watch for it to come out.  You'll love meeting her someday.  She's so interesting.




My dad also got all of us girls fun hats for Christmas.  This picture has the sister who was missing from the first photo in it (far left), but my sister from California wasn't in town yet when we opened the hats so she is missing from this photo.  One of these days all 5 of us will be together for a group picture!  The baby I am holding is my youngest sister's (the girl sitting next to me) newborn daughter.  We are crazy in love with her and all fight to hold her.

And finally a photo of me and BF.  Sometimes I think he may not ever fully smile.  Bless his heart, he just always looks like smiling is hard for him.  I will tell you that he really is a happy guy, so I'm not quite sure why his smile looks so forced.  I love him anyway. <3


So we hope you know how very much we love you and we are looking forward to the day that we can shower you with that love and include you in some of our special family gatherings.  You are never far from our minds and you are always in our hearts.

We love you so much and can't wait for our relationship to develop with you.

Much love to you,

Lisa and BF

Dear Brit

Just wanted to write you a quick letter to know how you were a part of our family Thanksgiving, even though you weren't actually present.

I was way ahead this year when it came to Christmas cards and I brought a Christmas card for all of our family members to our family Thanksgiving dinner.  Inside the cards for your grandparents, I had our card with pictures of all the boys and I also included a precious photo of you for each of them.  They loved it! 

We all stood around the kitchen table and talked about how much you look like BF and me.  Your eyes, your hair, your smile.  You are the spitting image of both of us.  Both of your grandmothers studied your face and talked about all the ways that they could see the similarities to our families.

I also brought some extra pictures of you that we laid on the table that we all looked at from time to time.  Even the cousins and your brothers would pick up the photos and talk about how adorable you are.  We all think you are pretty amazing.

We wish that you could know all of us.  And we are holding out hope that someday your parents will allow you to know us.  But just because you don't get to come and spend time with us doesn't mean that we don't talk about you all the time.  We have your pictures everywhere and we let people who visit our house know that the beautiful girl in the photo on our end table is you, our precious daughter.

You are very special to us and we love you very much.  And this Thanksgiving we are thankful for you.  And we continue to hope and pray that soon you will know us too.

We love you so very much and we continue to hold out hope that we will be allowed a relationship with you soon!

Love,

Lisa, BF and all of your extended family

Being a birthmom at Christmas = emotional trainwreck at any given moment

The boys showing off their new bags

As a whole we had a great Christmas.  The boys got along beautifully and got everything their hearts desired.  My BF absolutely stepped up this Christmas season, welcoming me and the boys into his home for an entire week, making us all feel like the family we plan to be someday.  He was so good to all of us, generous and inclusive.  I think I may have fallen even more in love with him as the week progressed.

While it was good and happy most of the time, I will admit, I had a few breakdowns. 

The first was at the beginning of the break when it became apparent that we would not be seeing Brit this holiday season.  We were hopeful that it would work for her family to come over and let us give her the gifts we chose for her (and a couple for her siblings).  However, the week of Christmas we finally got a note from them saying their schedule just didn't allow the time.  It was very hard on both BF and me.  We had both been very hopeful that it would work out.  We had waited several weeks to see if our request for them to join us for a little time would be doable.  Apparently it just didn't work for them.

So we mailed the gifts.  Mailed them to their home, which happens to be about 7 miles from our home.  It broke our hearts.  ALOT.  BF did a great job consoling me.  It required holding me as I sobbed for hours until I finally fell asleep.  Followed by a second day filled with tears at work.

But I had to move on.  We have a house full of boys who are here with me now who needed me to pull it together.  So I did.

Many happy memories were made before breakdown number two.

As we were getting ready to leave the house to head to BF's family Christmas, BF handed me the photo book that I had created for both of our mothers which included a year full of pictures of Brit.  He said to me that we should probably wait until later to give it to his mom. So let's guess what that started?... Yep, the floodgates.  He was right.  The nieces and nephews at her house would be confused because they barely remember me being pregnant.  And explaining who the baby was in the pictures would be complicated. Timing would be better later.  BUT.  That was all I needed to go into orbit. 

I already missed Brit dearly that Christmas Eve, and suddenly I had a catalyst to start the tears.  Again, BF wrapped his arms around me and told me he knows this is hard.  I cried for a few minutes, walked around out in the cold, pulled myself together and headed over to his mom's.  I also partook in a glass of wine which calmed my nerves enough that I could participate in holiday festivities.

Again, we enjoyed a nice Christmas Eve and when we woke up Christmas morning I did pretty well.  Until after all the boys' stockings were unloaded and they all scattered to their rooms.  As soon as they were out of sight, I found myself back in bed, curled up in a ball, crying softly into my pillow.  BF came looking for me after a while and again, just held me until it passed.  All I could think was that we were missing someone.  Everything was not OK.

I am so glad that he realizes that there is no fixing this.  Nothing he can say or do will make it better.  My heart is missing a piece.  It is gone and there is a painful hole there.  Most of the time I can function covering the hole with being busy.  But when family events happen, and we have all of our children together, I feel like there is a ghost child missing.  And unfortunately I cannot call her, or see her to reassure myself that everything is OK.

I know that Brit is loved and well cared for.  But I miss her and want to know her personally.  We love her too.  And I wish she knew us.  I wish she knew her brothers.

Sunday night I woke up from a deep sleep because I was dreaming of Brit and I realized I have no idea what her voice sounds like.  I couldn't go back to sleep with the nagging feeling of how I just needed to see her.  To know her.

I know that how things are today are not necessarily how they will always be.  That this distance between Brit's family and us may not always exist.

But living through this is really painful.  And waiting is so very hard.

Dear Brit, I'm sorry.

Dearest Brit,

It is the holiday season again. Thanksgiving just past, Christmas looming around the corner and Halloween is a not-so-distant memory.  It is a great time of year to be a kid.

Last year at this time, I was pretty much a mess.  I haven't gone back to look at my posts from that time, but I know for a fact that tears were my mainstay.  I missed you so much and wanted you with us so badly.

I must say, not much of that has changed.  I cry less (just because I think my tear supply is permanently diminished).  But the the longing for you is the same.

While it might seem silly, Halloween was hard this year.  There were a few reasons why, but one at the top of the list was because we didn't get to see you all dressed up.  We had all the boys, in costume and together.  But you were missing.

I know your parents took you out and you had a blast.  They told us about it about a month later when we got our monthly update about you.  But for weeks preceding, your (birth)father and I talked about what we thought you might be dressed up as and how you would like walking around getting candy. And the night of Halloween we sure thought about you and wondered how it was going.

This weekend when we were celebrating Thanksgiving, I found that while I have so much to be thankful for, my thoughts always come right back to you and how I wish you were here with us.



Your brothers D and LanMan - your cousin A also at the table.
If you look closely your (birth)father is in the background.

 I wanted you to be making gingerbread houses with your brothers at Nana's house. 

LanMan with your cousin B

I wanted you to be running around with your cousin who is 2 weeks younger than you.  I wanted to hear the two of you talking to each other in that language that toddlers speak to each other while playing with toys. 


I wanted to hold you on my lap while you napped from shear exhaustion from all of the busyness of the day.

Instead of that, when we took pictures, you were missing.  You didn't get to sit at the table with us.  You weren't rolling around on the floor playing with your brothers.  We weren't passing you around from aunt to aunt, oogling over how positively adorable you are.

Me and all my sisters (your aunts) and my mom (your gma)

Thankfully our family doesn't pretend like you don't exist, just because you aren't here.  We all love you so much.  We talk about you and what your parents have told us you are doing now.  We look at your pictures.  We speculate about what it is like to hear your voice.  We talk about how very cute you are and how you look like us.  And of course, all of your aunts ask time and again when I think we might be able to see you.

I sure hope that my counselor is right when she says that the way things are right now is not necessarily how they will be forever.  I don't know if I can bear the thought of not having a relationship with you for much longer.  And you are only 20 months old!

I am glad you have great parents who adopted you.  I know they take very good care of you and that you are happy.  For that, I suppose I am thankful.

But I won't pretend that I don't want a do-over when it comes to choosing to let you be raised in a different family.  The problem is, there are no do-overs with adoption.  We chose that path for you and now we are all living the consequences.  Thankfully your consequences are unnoticeable right now.  You are young and happy.  We are the only ones visibly grieved by your loss.  I do know that this will not always be the case.  As time goes on, you will be the one who is conflicted and forced to deal with all of the issues that are inherent to those who are adopted.

I would guess that someday you are going to wonder how we felt about our decision to place you with another family. I hope that you know that just because we chose adoption when we did, it does not mean we ever stopped loving you or that we didn't think about you all day, every day.

We all miss you.  Every one of us.  Adoption has not just changed me, but it has changed all of us.  Your (birth) father, your brothers, your grandparents, our extended families and even our closest friends.  We miss you.  We wish you were here with us, part of the family you were born into.

But you are not with us.  You don't get to share in the family get-togethers.  And it is our own fault.  We did what we thought was best for you at the time.  Unfortunately we didn't realize the consequences of that decision.  We were wrong.  We could have and should have raised you.  But we can't fix it now. 

What we can do is be ready and available for the moment when we are allow a little access to you by your parents.  And we hope and pray that once you are capable of having a say in it, that you will want to have a relationship with us too.

Now to be clear.  This has little or nothing to do with your adoptive parents.  They are so good to you.  They love you and care for you just exactly how we wanted you to be loved by two married parents.  They are excellent parents as far as we can tell (and we believe it to be so).  All that I am saying is that I wish you would have stayed with us.  Even if it was hard.  Even if we weren't married and you had to be shuttled between two homes.  In hindsight, that is nothing compared to the complication we have created by choosing a completely different family to raise you.

Me and your (birth)father at Jessica's wedding

So please know my dear, sweet Brit, we have loved you every single day.  If we could, we would rewind and make alot of different decisions.  The greatest of those being never letting you go.  I am so sorry that this is your reality now and that we are the ones responsible for it.  We are going to do everything in our limited power to make this adoption story turn out the very best it can.  We want only the best for you.

I hope that we are so available to you that you never wonder about our love and commitment to you.  I hope that you are allowed time with our family so you can know first hand all of your family and how much we all love you.  If there is any way to make this adoption story happy for you, we will do whatever it takes.

We love you dear Brit.  More than can ever be put to words.

Love,

Your first mother

P.S.  On a single happy note, I got more Christmas gifts for you last night.  Your (birth)father and I have already been shopping for you for several weeks (he actually bought your first present without me around!).  We finally figured out what gift to get you this past weekend and last night I found exactly what we were looking for.  When I bought it, I immediately went over to his house and had to show it off.  We can't wait for you to get it.  Maybe we will even get to see you open it, maybe...