[Magens8]

Hi I am new to posting here, although I have been lurking for a while. Our homestudy is essentialy finished - just waiting for the write up and we are beginning to prepare the Dear Birthmother letter. I was wondering if any of you had samples you would be willing to post or send me over email at magens8@yahoo.com.
Also does anyone know if the DB letter and photo album are presented to the Birthmother before the selection of parents is made or if it reviewed by the Korean agency who makes the decision and then it is presented to the Birthmother afterwards?
Thanks!

[racytracy]

We wrote our Dear Birth mother letter after our child was home (we also were asked to write one to the foster mother). From what we were told, our agency (Eastern) keeps it in case the birth mother comes back looking for something. We also sent photos for her of baby in his new home.

Basically we wrote about how much he was loved, and how we would offer him all the advantages we could, and how much we thanked her every day for the gift she had given us. We also talked about our son and what he likes to do.

HTH,
Tracy

[hopeful2adopt]

We were told our dear birthmother letter and photo album would be kept on file with the agency (SWS) should the birth mother ever want to see them at a later date.

[dmrjcr]

** doesn't choose you in Korea. We were told the letter and albumn are used by SWS to match you. We agonized over both. I can't post because they told us to handwrite ours, sorry.

[Magens8]

Thanks for your replies everyone. It is helpful to know that they are saved for the birthmother in case she wants them. One additional question and hopefully it is not too personal. Did anyone state in there letter that they would like to or are open to having the birthmother contact them when she is ready... or do you just essentially write a letter of thanks to her?

[momfirst]

We closed our letter of thanks by saying that we would support our daughters decision to find her birthmother no matter what that decision was. I did not want to say that we wanted to meet her because that is ultimately our daughter's decision. Although personally I would hope she would want to...but you never know. You do not want to give the birthmother the impression it is a sure thing when you do not know how your child will feel. I learned this because of my two adopted cousins, one was absolutely opposed to meeting his birth mother and one insisted on meeting hers. You never know how they will feel as adults. I felt it was mainly a letter of thanks. Your agency may have better advice for you...Mandy

[allenkaren]

We agonized over our dear birthmother letter. It was so hard to write. Our agency did give us suggestions which help give us a framework for our letter and helped to convey the proper tone. Our letter also needed to be handwritten so I can't forward it to you. However, one of the books I checked out of our library on adoption had a sample letter. It was geared more for domestic adoption, but the sentiment was the same. It is called The Complete Adoption Book.

We also had to do a scrapbook. I ended up using shutterfly to create a softcover narrative book and it came out great. Our agency seemed to really like it too.

Good luck. It sounds like you are nearing the end of the paperwork process!!!
Karen