When you're the adoptive parent, however, it's a little nerve wracking. Old fears of being the last one picked for the dodgeball team are quick to resurface, and to be honest, when I was first looking into the whole adoption/foster world, I was turned off by this aspect of open adoption. Rational thinking soon prevailed, however, and here we are.
So, in order to attract a birthmother, prospective adoptive parents such as I have to create something called a Dear Birthmother letter, which is a glossy brochure full of pictures of me in various scenarios (with kids, without kids, with friends, at work) all while being awesome at whatever I'm doing. These are accompanied by text describing my awesome life, awesome friends, awesome plans for my child... you get the picture. There is a very specific writing style and pattern to the text as laid out by my adoption agency, and while the writer part of me mentally rebelled at the constrictions, I had to ultimately cede to their far greater understanding of the Dear Birthmother genre. However, when they informed me that the writing and editing process can take up to 7-10 editing cycles back and forth with their writing specialist, I silently responded in my head, "not with me it won't." (Final text: 2 edits. Boo-yah.) A sample line: "I can’t wait to take my child to my weekly farmer’s market to sample fresh fruit and veggies, or walk over to LACMA (our big art museum) and check out the cool, interactive art." Offensive to literally no-one is the bottom line.
Equally, the photos chosen have to tread a very fine line of accurately representing you without potentially putting any human off. For example, I love this picture with my nephew:
But it's way too risque for the letter.
The Dear Birthmother letter, not to put too fine a point on it, is a sales pitch, yelling "PICK ME!" in a sea of other, equally deserving Dear Birthmother letters (a typical birthmom will get around 100 brochures). I heard a birthmom speak about how she automatically disqualified anyone she didn't think was good looking. While this is, of course, massively unfair, and obviously not all birthmoms would do the same, they still have to figure out some sort of criteria for narrowing down the selection when every single person or couple is equally worthy of becoming a parent. It may be something as simple as liking the idea of their kid growing up in California, or that a pet in a picture reminds them of their own dog. For the adoptive parent, it's the ultimate in having no control. I was recently emailing with a friend, who very perceptively wrote, "I won't ask how the adoption is going, because it's probably the same, until it's not, and then you have a baby." (That's exactly how it's going.)
The Dear Birthmother letter that I really want to write is very different than my sales pitch. It goes more like this:
Dear Birthmother,
First of all, this is totally weird. Can we agree on that? I'm trying to entice you away from the other people who want to be parents so that you ultimately pick me. And what you're picking me for is you're going to give me your baby to raise as my own. Bananas. Here's the thing: we're both in a completely strange and foreign situation here and neither one of us knows exactly how it's supposed to go down, so we're just going to have to work it out as we go. I think you're awesome for doing this, by the way, and I'm not sure if I was in your position I would have it in me to do the same. I promise I'm going to do my best, which means I'll probably screw some stuff up, but that's how life goes.
Lots of love,
Sarah
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