I have always loved The B’s. From the day I met them – actually, from the day I read their profile – I knew they would be amazing parents. I remember the day I found their profile – I had gone to the adoption agency for another meeting with my adoption counselor, and as soon as I walked in, she handed me a huge stack of profiles that she had picked out based on what I said I was looking for in an adoptive family.
I was there for hours. I analyzed every little thing about those profiles, from the pictures and where I thought they had been taken, to the actual information, to the wording of some of the things the families wrote. I actually discarded a family because they said, “We’d be happy to have you in your child’s life, but if you’d rather not, that will still be okay.” To the outside observer, it sounds respectful and looking back on it, I’m sure that’s all they meant. But to a women looking for people to parent the love of her life, it sounded like a veiled attempt at saying, “We’d prefer if you just kind of disappear after this whole thing.” I know it’s silly, but that’s how incredibly intense I felt that day.
I was suddenly overwhelmed with the hugeness of what I was doing. I knew that I would have to pick a family for you. But these people were going to raise you. You were going to grow up with their values, surrounded by their family, learning their way of life. These people were going to impact you for the rest of forever. When you grew up, you would be the person you were because of them. Which, in a roundabout way, meant that who you were going to be depended on me and who I chose. Talk about your massive life decisions.
The B’s profile was towards the bottom of the stack, not the last but a few profiles away from it. I looked at theirs the longest. I had seen their profile online before – Grandma M had looked them up on Bethany’s website and shown them to me briefly a month or two earlier. They were the only ones with a hardback book-type profile, in a really pretty green color – J’s creative genius at work again. It was beautiful, from the pictures to what they said in it…all about them and their family and how much they loved their son and all the fun things they liked to do. And also, how much they wanted to love me. How much they wanted me involved.
My counselor told me that when I found a family I liked, I could tell her and put them “on hold.” I finished with their profile, handed it to her and said, “I want them. I want to put them on hold.” She looked at me a little stunned and suggested I finish with the profiles and maybe take a few days to think about them, even take a few of them home. I flipped through the ones underneath The B’s but sadly and perhaps unfairly, I didn’t truly read them. My mind was somewhere else, with a beautiful family and their green, hardback book.
The B’s profile was the only one I took with me. I showed it to the woman at the main desk in the agency and told her I had put them on hold. I immediately drove to Grandma M’s work and showed her. I called C on the way and told him we had to meet up soon because I had something to show him. When I got to Grandma M’s work, I called the agency to double-check that The B’s were mine. They were – they were officially “reserved” and we’ve belonged to each other ever since.
I couldn’t be happier. The day after your adoption was official, they came back to my parent’s house and stayed the night so I could spend a little more time with you. J took pictures of all of us outside the next day (my chubby, post-pregnancy face is absolutely ravishing, by the way) and they made a get-together date for a couple of weeks later so I’d know when I was going to see you again. I remember seeing E outside the adoption agency right before the adoption ceremony – he came right up to me and gave the biggest hug I’ve ever gotten. They felt just as lucky to have you as I felt for you to have them.
But one thing they promised me was that you would always know how much I loved you. They said they would never let you forget it. So on the days I can’t tell you in person or write to you about it here, I still feel confident that you know it, that someone is telling you. But I also want them to know how much I love them – I’m sure that they know, but I’m not sure if they understand the intensity behind it. I love them as I love you, because they are one in the same now. And everyday you do something cute or funny or beyond your years, I fall more in love with every single one of you.
Letters to Little Man 