[beau]

Hello everyone. My husband and I are in the beginning stages of adopting our first child. I have been reading all the post that give advice on writing the "dear bmom letter", but I am still confused and struggling with a few areas and was hoping to get some direction.

1. We have 4 large indoor dogs and 3 indoor cats that are our 4 legged kids. They are an important part of ours lives. Everything I have read says to only describe your pets briefly, but I am concerned that if a potential bmom sees the 4 large dogs, that without a description it will scare her away. So in my letter, for each dog I have written about 4 sentence describing them and their personality. Then included a brief sentence about the cats. What are your suggestions to handle this? But this is pushing my letter to 3 pages and my agency wants it to be only two pages (pictures not included)

2. On the topic of "your child" verses "a child" verses " our child".....this has me totally confused. When writing a letter to a potential birthmom that states for example "we plan on sharing these values with our child" ....or "we plan on sharing these values with your child".......should it instead say "we plan on sharing these values with a child"? I have tried to avoid "your child" and "our child" phrases as much as possible and just word it in a way that I can use "a child", but I do not want to give the wrong impression?

3. While we do reference our desire/love to have a child and our beliefs on parenting, we have not included such statements as (for example);
"we are so excited at the thought of holding a new baby in our arms" or "We can’t wait to sing our baby to sleep and wake up for those 2 o’clock in the morning feedings"
Is this something we should be including......while I do feel like these types of things, they are things that the bmom will not be experiencing and I do not want her to feel like we slapping her in the face for a lack of better term. But hard far should you go to portray to them that you will love their child?

Hope that makes sense and thanks!
Wendy

[MMC66]

I know exactly what you are going through. I struggled with every one of your questions (including the pet one - we have nine pets). You are who you are and birthmothers are regular people just like you. I was worried about the fact that I had been divorced and that we already had four kids - why would a birth mom choose us? The fact is the pbmom who we are working with right now chose us BECAUSE we had lots of pets and BECAUSE we already had four kids so you don''t know - the best way to make a good match is to represent yourselves as honestly and comfortably as you can.

As for the your baby, our baby thing that was tough. I read gazillions of letters on the internet and pick out the ones I liked and "borrowed" wording from the letters I liked the most.

Good luck - I know it's hard but in the end you'll come up with a great letter :-)

Martha

[numbr1dbcksfan]

I will tell you what I looked for... A couple who were happy and wanted to share that with a child! Any hint of desperation and I put the profile down. I just wanted to hear about them! Not hear any justification for wanting a child!

It sounds like you put together a great profile. I think it would be great to hear about your pets...but maybe a paragragh on each might be over board. I would mostly want to read about you and your husband! I dont think you would even have to justify your pets.... to me, obviously if your dog(s) were aggressive you would get rid of them when you had a child! So I dont think you need to worry!

Good Luck!

[kathycasa]

JUST BE YOURSELF!!!!!!!! You want this woman who may potentially give you the greatest blessing ever to know the REAL you!!!! My dh and I never read the first dear bmom letter. Our agency gave us a list of things that had to be included in the letter, and we just took it from there. We had a blast!!! For some reason, we didn't get the least bit nervous about the letter. We just described ourselves, our pets, our lives, and our desire to be parents. AND IT WORKED!!! We now have 2 kids that we love and cherish more and more each day. So sit back, relax, and just write what comes to you and dh. Then let someone close to you read it, and critique it, and if you take their suggestions, then make the neccessary changes and send it off!!! Good luck on your journey!!! Kathy

[emiliesfirstmom]

Be yourself... I know that's difficult with all the instructions you get from your agency and advice from others.

As a birthmom, I also avoided anything that smacked of desperation. I looked at pictures first. They really are worth a thousand words! If your dogs are your babies, I would definitely include them. Instead of doing a sentence about each dog, perhaps condense it down to a sentence or two about how sweet they are or something along those lines. How scary they might appear to a birthmom would depend a lot on her personality AND on the type of dogs you have... a lab looks a lot "friendlier" to most people than a doberman!

On the issue of your child, our child, a child, it's okay to use the term "our child." First, as a birthmom, I WANTED my daughter's a-parents to feel like this was THEIR child, because that's what she is! Second, the word "our" could be taken to mean yours and your husbands OR it could be interpreted as yours, your husbands AND the birthmom's. To go with "your child" might make the birthmom think that perhaps you will have trouble thinking of the baby as yours. Maybe?

I don't think it's a slap in the face at all to talk about the things you want to do with your child. If anything, I think it shows that you have given a lot of thought to the things you want your child to experience. I was delighted when my daughter's aparents told me about all the children's books they'd been collecting because they were so looking forward to story time with their child.

Good luck with your letter. I'm sure it will be great.

[beau]

Thanks everyone...it was great to hear the input from both sides and I think I am on the right path.
I shortened the sentences about the dogs, and left a small tidbit about them.
We have included enough pictures to make my letter about five pages long....I think pictures can almost tell your story better than you sometimes.
We think our letter really gives someone and insight to who we are without going overboard! We will add a few more sentences about our desire to be parents (without the desperation factor ) Thanks emiliesfirstmom for the idea on children's book....we have been collecting Disney released movies for our child for many years and I did not even think to include it.

While this letter has been hard, it has been fun too
I ordered the "Reaching Out" book that everyone here on this forum has recommended. But mostly it has been great to get ideas directly from this forum and from like Martha said reading other profiles on the internet.

Thanks again!!!
Wendy

[Volfe]

I agree: be yourself!

List your pets, you'd want someone who likes animals to know, and those that don't to know too. I'd abbreviate that part though like we have 4 dogs: Yellah & Marvin, 2 labs; Butch, a shepard-mix, (etc).

You know, I love animals and would consider that, but it wouldn't have been my sole criteria. I like to know what your values, interests, lives are like. And what you envision for your child. However, I never did view profiles.

HOwever, I did like this one I saw online it had a creative picture of the dog with the binky and the toddler next to it, both looking up at the camera. It showed creativity and love of their pet and baby (and how close they both were). I sent them an email telling them so. I'd post the pic (saved that) but erm it's not mine to post

Maia

[michellemartin]

I'd put in the pets! And tons of pics of them, too! As for the your child/our child, our child doesnt neccesarily exclude the bmom. Our chould mean yours and hers. I would stay away from writing my child in the letter at first. Make sence? But breif is better IMO. Some pbmoms read tons of letters, so really long ones tend to get skimmed over. Maybe you could write a short handwritten one and then a more in depth one including your pets. Most of the profiles I looked at had a written letter. I only read those until I narrowed it down to 3 then read the really really long letters.

[beau]

Just wanted to say thanks again for all your ideas. We finished our letter today!! With lots and lots of pictures it is 4 1/2 pages.
I am now on my way to the scrapbooking place to put it all together. Thanks again everyone

[Nelson]

I'm so pleased that the board is so active and helpful. You are all great.

Just for another country heard from, here are my feelings about these issues (most of which are in the book).

1) i agree with the pets thing...to a point. if pets are a big part of the life, they need to be included. I usually recommend that BIG SCARY DOGS be ommited if possible, only because its usually difficult in a letter to ameliorate people's fears of them. better left to do in person. but in this case, it seems unavoidable. I wouldn't go so far as a paragraph each, however. Just my personal feeling, but you don't want to fetishize them. you want eparents to believe you have room for a child as well.

2) i always recommend "your child" when refering to the actual child, like " we want to give your child all the care and love they deserve," and our child when talking in the abstract, like " we always imagined our child raised with horses."

3) there are lots of ways to talk about your desire to parent. pick the way thats genuine to you. don't feel you have to insert a bunch of "i wish" verbiage just because others do. there's is nothing worse (or more transparent) than phony sentimentality. Make sure the tone of your letter reflects who you are and you can't go wrong. your desire will shine through.

thanks again all. keep your wise words coming.