Dear Brit

Dear Brit,

I vaguely remember last year at this time and how very difficult it was to celebrate Halloween without knowing anything about you and what you were doing that day.  Halloween is definitely a holiday for young children so it is a time when we naturally wish we could see you and see the joy you must have during such a fun holiday for kids.

Both last year and this year, as I stood at the door and watched other toddlers walk up and say "Trick or Treat" I wondered what Halloween was like for you.  I wondered what costume you were wearing and how you reacted when you realized you had a bag full of chocolate.  I bet you were delighted.

In our email response back to your parents a couple of days before Halloween I asked your dad  if he might send us a picture or two of you in your Halloween costume.  I kinda hoped he might send one on Halloween so we could enjoy seeing you all dressed up.  So far we haven't gotten one, but maybe he will include a picture with the November email update.

I want you to know how often we talk about you at our house.  I know I have told you before that we keep pictures of you up in the living room.  But we also say your name often.

A funny thing happened just this Sunday that brought a huge smile to my face.

A few weeks ago we put together gift bags for you and your brother and sister.  In them we put fall themed toys, coloring books, DVDs of your favorite show Oomi Zoomi, dress up clothes and masks, and even some snacks.  One of the gifts we put in the bag was a simple little jack o lantern cup.  We put a cup for each of you in your individual bags.  But the package of the cups had 4.  So we kept one cup at our house.

As I put the cup in our cupboard, I said to your brothers L and D that when they drank out of that cup they could remember you.  I said it in passing, and didn't make a big deal of it.  Honestly I wasn't even sure they heard me.

But on Sunday, L was getting water out of the refrigerator while I was in the laundry room getting clothes out of the dryer.  And out of no where he said your name.  Just your name.  Nothing else.  I stopped what I was doing and peeked my head around the corner and asked him what he just said.  He looked at me and held up the cup and said "Brit" and he smiled from ear to ear.

It made me smile too.

We all love you very much and miss you.  We can't wait until we have a personal relationship with you.  Each day that passes gets us closer to that day we hope.

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...

Halloween

Not many more kiddo Halloweens for me.  Some moms would be sad about that.  I am delighted to think I will no longer have to spend money on a one time use costume.

L and D trick or treated with BF's kids.  They had a great time.  L and BF's oldest son conspired their costumes together a few weeks ago.  They looked adorable.

BF's son and L as Mario and Luigi

L and D - brotherly love

BF's youngest son, D and their friend Jack

Even little Princess was trick or treating last night.  Her momma used the costume I borrowed for her.  She was a hit.

Added 11/7/11

Just had to add Brit in her costume to my Halloween picture collection - even though we didn't see her that night.  We did get a follow up photo the week later.  She is so stinkin' cute!