we got another packet in the mail today from our placement agency.  They confirmed our registration for the orientation weekend (good thing!  we’ve already bought plane tickets and booked the hotel!) and sent along a few letters from past orientation weekend participants with glowing stories about the relationships they formed at the orientation and a few “adoption resumes” — also known as “dear birthmother letters” –except these are more of the scrapbooked packet of pages variety than “letter” per se.

way back when we were exploring all of our options, the idea of writing a dear birthmother letter really turned me off of domestic adoption.  “you mean I basically have to advertise myself?  that feels so…. weird!”  Now that I’m further along in the process, I’m beginning to recognize that all of the details that we put into this “letter” are ways for us to try to express who we REALLY are–not just the words and photos, but also the design, the colors, the layout…. and if we succeed at creating a letter that really reflects US, then we’ll have a greater chance of getting a match with someone who has similar likes/dislikes/etc.  And if THEY have similar taste, then maybe the genes they’re passing along to their child will make for a good match with our personalities.  Or at least, that’s the theory.

I use the term “dear birthmother” lightly because I’ve heard that many prospective birthmothers don’t really like the term.  I mean, until they actually give birth to a baby and then sign papers to say they’ve chosen adoption for their child, they are MOTHERS, not BIRTHmothers.  So then, what salutation to use?  “Howdy”? “To Whom it may concern”? “Yo!”?  Yep.  I”m stuck on the first word.  This might take awhile.

maybe I’ll go dig through my photo archives to try to locate “action photos” that include both of us.  I’m sure that will go more quickly……

*edited a few hours later to add:  i’m discovering the curse of being an active photographer–TONS of pictures of other people, their kids, food, flowers, artsy shots of random weird things BUT….. hardly ANY of the two of us.  Especially ones where we’re both smiling at the camera and neither one of us is wearing sunglasses.  So here’s your chance to help us out.  Does anyone out there have attractive photos of the two of us sitting on your hard drive?  Maybe camping?  Or biking?  Or playing pond hockey?  If so, I would be ever so grateful if you would e-mail them to me before Thursday, June 25.  Thanks!