Biological father | Letters to Little Man

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World Adoption Day

Dear Little Man,

Yesterday afternoon I was sifting through my Instagram feed when I came across this post from an actress I like:

Property of Nina Dobrev

Sharpie smiles? Happy faces? I like both of those! I checked it out and the photo caption indicated that they were celebrating something…World Adoption Day! Yesterday was the first ever World Adoption Day, an organization founded by many, but mostly pioneered by Adopt Together — a foundation that helps families raise money so that they can adopt (yes, having a heart big enough to lead you to adoption can cost a lot of money for the adoptive families!). It is “crowd funded,” meaning that the Adopt Together website raises money through donations of friends, family and even strangers. Yet another reminder of the power of love and the compassion that exists between people around the world :)

World Adoption Day invited people all over the world (and their friends and family) to post a photo of a “hands up smiley face” with the hashtag, “#worldadoptionday” to bring attention to the cause, to the families trying to bring a child home…and to adoption in general!

I was so excited a.k.a I immediately jumped on PicStitch, found some of my favorite photos and made THIS so that I could contribute to World Adoption Day!

You, me and The B’s across the years!

Any and every foundation that supports, promotes and/or raises money for adoption warms my heart. There are so many elemental, beautiful things about adoption: creating families, helping children, spreading and sharing love, caring for others…adoption is beautiful on so many levels, I could never list them all. Open adoption in particular…I know my son, he knows me (and his birth father, and our parents and friends), and we’ve all gained such amazing extended families out of it. Every one — especially birth mothers! — deserve the opportunity to be part of something as beautiful as this. Little Man even knows to call me his birth mother now (a post on that is absolutely coming!). Sometimes, it’s stunning how lucky I am, and it’s all thanks to adoption. An entire day devoted to bringing awareness to it? I’m absolutely on board.

As I said in my Instagram post…”Open adoption is the thing, y’all. Spread the word!”

Many thanks to Adopt Together, World Adoption Day and all of its founders, organizations and supporters!

And thank YOU, Little Man, for bringing all of this joy to my life in the first place. Happy (technically late) November 9th, 2014, Liam. I love you more than words.

Love,
Renee (“Birth Mom” as you call me now :D)

—

And, of course, my official photo for #WorldAdoptionDay!

Check out World Adoption Day’s Facebook Page and “like” it to see all of the smiles!

Tags: Adopt Together, Adoption, adoptive family, adoptive parents, Awareness, Bethany Christian Services, Biological father, Birth mom, Birth mother, Birthmom, family, hashtag, Instagram, Liam, Liam Hudson, Little Man, Nina Dobrev, November 9th, Open adoption, Photos, posts, World Adoption Day, worldadoptionday

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Categories Stuff to Learn, Things to Know

Fate and Bookstores

7 Jan

Good things always happen to me around books. I love, love, love to read, so I suppose it makes sense. But the past few times I’ve been in book stores, strange (but wonderful!) things have been happening: I run into old friends (I saw one from middle school the other day) or very helpful strangers (the author of one of the books I was looking at just happened to be in the store and struck up conversation with me). I met The Boyfriend in a library. Plus, most book stores have coffee shops in them, and if that’s not a good sign, I don’t know what is.

Last Saturday I was in a bookstore with Aunt S. We had just come from lunch and decided to stop in at the Book Exchange. It’s a great little place. The walls are made entirely out of bookshelves and there aren’t really “tables” so much as there are “nooks” with comfy chairs or couches, tucked away behind the shelves, perfect for curling up and reading while you sip coffee or wine. Aunt S and I love to study there during the semester.

So on Saturday, we found ourselves a tiny table with some comfy chairs in between two massive bookshelf-walls. As we’re sitting and talking (which we can do marathon-style for hours) I happen to glance over at the bookshelf right beside our table. It was a glass case filled with books that were over $50 — classics, vintage copies, signed copies of American classics by the original authors. I think we found one for $550!

As we’re looking, I turned my head and sitting (quite literally) just beneath my nose was this:

I know it says “Little Men” instead of “Little Man” but still…too close to be coincidence. Speaking of which, I got to see you later that very same day for dinner while you were in town to see C, your biological father. But it’s moments like these — finding Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Men” sitting right beside me at a random table we happened to have chosen — that make me smile and give a nod to the Big Guy (or Girl or…Entity) Upstairs for some truly excellent planning.

It’s nice to be reminded that Someone Else watches over us too :)

Tags: Adoption, Battery Park Book Exchange, Biological father, Birth mother, Book Exchange, Books, bookstore, coffee, Coincidence, family, Fate, Library, Little Men, Louisa May Alcott, Open adoption, Reading

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Categories About Mama, Things to Know

You, Me and C Makes Three

29 Feb

Me and C at Senior Prom

I’ve been in love three times in my life, but as of now, only two of those times will matter to you. Because one of those times was with you. The other was with your biological father C.

I don’t know if our story will ever matter to you, mine and C’s. I think it will someday. I think that eventually, how you came to be will be important to you. And the good news is that our love story is a good one – one I’m happy to retell, one I look back on and mostly think of fondly. We didn’t last, as I’m sure you will be able to tell soon enough. We are on very good terms now, even if it wasn’t always the case. And personally, I think the beginning and the middle matter much more than the end.

We fell in love in high school. We were on the high school newspaper together, so we’d known each other for about a year when we started dating. I know most people don’t believe that kids as young as we were – 17 for me, 16 for him – have any idea of what love actually means. I think it’s subjective. I think you are the only person who has the right to judge how you feel. And we certainly felt head-over-heels for each other. We said “I love you” for the first time on March 1, 2009 and every day afterwards for almost a year.

I remember one time when I was having a bad day, he took me for a drive, cranked up the loudest, most obnoxious rock song he had in his car and told me to scream as loud as I possibly could to get it all out. We both started yelling over the music and pretty soon, I couldn’t stop laughing. Another day, we went to a guitar shop (C is a ridiculously talented musician) and looked around. I could tell he wanted to play one, but we started to leave because he didn’t want to bore me. I stole his keys and wouldn’t let us leave until he played. I supported him. He cared about me. We spent the time we weren’t together texting or calling. I spent every Sunday at his house with his family. He brought me coffee to school in the mornings. We kissed and hugged and held hands. Even thinking back on it now, I find myself smiling. We loved each other.

I just think it is important for you to know that you exist because of love. Though you were unexpected, I never, ever want you to think you were an “accident.” Accident implies a mishap, an unfortunate or undesirable occurrence, and you my precious baby boy, are anything but – you are my everything. You are the result of two people experiencing first love. Two people who would have done anything for the other, who cared about each other more than anything else in the world. Two people who fall more and more in love with you every day.

True, our relationship didn’t survive my pregnancy. But that is absolutely the result of things that were done or said by us – not you. We were young, and in the end, youth can prove to be just as unstable as it is exciting. But I do believe we were in love. When we were in love, I truly thought I was done with dating – C and I were a forever kind of deal, and at the time, that thought went both ways. We truly meant it when we said “I love you,” and we still say it today – it just has a different connotation now.

If anything, our love for one another might mean even more now than it did back when we were in the first throes of love – after surviving the things that happened during my pregnancy, when there were some times when I definitely did not feel loving towards him, the fact that we still care for each other now is incredibly meaningful.

We grew up very fast – our lives were not about us anymore, and though I came to terms with that faster than he did, that knowledge definitely impacted us – it changed us both forever. But the best kind of love is that kind that changes you; the kind that touches your soul and leaves impressions that never fade and that you never forget. And wouldn’t you know, I think it’s the best thing that has ever happened to us. Because you are definitely the best thing that has ever happened to me.

There is so much more to our story. One day, if you want, I’ll tell you the rest of it, and C will help me. We’ll get to share little pieces of the love that brought you to be the gift that you are. We’ll get to relive our story – a story that was already unique and special, and now, it has the best ending of all :)