At our Annual Birth Mother Brunch in May 2023, we asked a variety of members of the adoption constellation to write an Open Letter to Birth Moms Everywhere. These were letters written to all birth moms that share what the writer appreciates about the birth mom in his or her life as well as birth moms in general. We will be sharing each letter as part of a series over the next few months. We hope these letters communicate just how much birth mothers mean to those who are walking alongside them on the adoption journey.

Dear Birth Mother,

I am constantly restless for another way to address you. Another title, another name, another couplet of words… anything that can carry the appropriate weight of who you are to me, to us, to the child we share.

You Are More

You are not simply a “birth” mother. You did not simply “give birth.” You created a singularly unique and precious human being within your body. You nourished and cherished that tiny seed of potential for months, forsaking a year of your body and your mind for their flourishing. It was your heartbeat they heard first, your voice they knew first, your embrace they loved first. All the while carrying this little life inside you, you carried the weight of a decision. A decision so heavy with fear and grief that many say they could not do it; so heavy that only the most selfless of loves could bear it.

You created a singularly unique and precious human being within your body… It was your heartbeat they heard first, your voice they knew first, your embrace they loved first.

Your Legacy

When you did give birth, you embarked on a journey entrusted to women by God, to meet a child whose first breaths would be the result of your strength; whose eyes, skin, and nose were a reflection of you. This precious child smelled you first, desired you first, found comfort in you first. As decisions were made and papers were signed, as time marched forward and your child spent more time in someone else’s arms, that selfless love whispered a legacy over your child; a song sung in 1 Corinthians 13:

Love never fails.”

As decisions were made and papers were signed, as time marched forward and your child spent more time in someone else’s arms, that selfless love whispered a legacy over your child…

Your Love

As days turned into months, and months into years, your love has continued to protect, trust, hope, and persevere. It has never failed. Every day your love, the love that gave purpose to your sacrifice, beats within your child. It is the essence of their being; they will carry it with them to their first day of kindergarten and as they stand at the altar; when they bring new life into the world and are themselves ushered into the new life of Heaven. Every trial and triumph your child experiences is because of the patient, kind, humble, selfless love that was inscribed on their life in your act of love.

Every day your love, the love that gave purpose to your sacrifice, beats within your child.

The love of a mother goes beyond birth. And so does yours. You are not simply a “birth” mother because long after you left that hospital, you continue to mother your child through a persevering love unique only to you. Only you can, and have, loved your child the way you do. You are a mother. A mother whose love has never failed and never will.