When my husband and I decided that adoption was the rout we would take to begin our family nothing but enthusiasm pushed us to complete the adoption qualifications.  I thought about being a mother each day, dreamed about each night, and  pictured in my head how I would love and raise my baby.  What I did not think about, or prepare for, was how much I would love my baby's birth mother and father. 

When we began the adoption process we thought had a feeling that a child was immediately waiting for us and it would only be a matter of finishing our paper work.  This thought proved to be not as quickly as we had imagined as the months and years passed by without us adopting.  We had heard that it could take some time since the adoption agency we were working with had the birth mother choose the adoptive parents.  We prayed fervently that we would be selected but more importantly connected with the baby that God wants to be in our family. 

One unexpected Saturday afternoon a package was delivered with a hand made scrapbook page inside that read "From God, To Me, To You" followed by a letter from a girl, unknown to us named Alysha, asking us to adopt her baby.  We did not know what to say to one another, I remember being beside myself and asking my husband if this was real.  After the initial shock and excitement, thoughts and feelings of unworthiness flooded my mind.  How were we fortunate a enough to receive such a great blessing from God.  He really does love us.

As we waited for the birth of our child, we had the privilege and opportunity to correspond with his birth mother and father.  The more we corresponded the more we learned to love and appreciate them.  Even now, the more we know Alysha, we understand how lucky our son is to know this remarkable woman who loved her baby so much that she wanted him to have more than what she could offer.  She wanted to have her child raised in a family with a mom and a dad together, and when her marriage plans fell through she only thought of her child and nothing else.

When I first found out that we could not have biological children, I mourned that I would not see my eyes in my child, my husband's strut as my son walks, or either of our personalities. However, I could not be happier that when I look at my sons beautiful big dark eyes that I see his beautiful birth mother, and how his eyebrows remind me of his birth father.  I love the fact that I can see them when I look at my son and that it reminds me of their love. This love gives me more patience when I'm moping thrown food off  floor for the fourth time in one day or collecting my husbands socks out of the toy trucks.  It's because of their love that I have a green truck to pack when we go out of town, that I have tiny fingerprints to wash off of the mirror, childish songs stuck in my head all day,  toes to tickle and best of all some one calls me mom every day. 

They loved this baby from the beginning, they love him now.  Adoption was their plan when their marriage plan did not work out.  We were part of their plan. They do not want to interfere with our plan of being a family now.  They want to continue loving our son, and when has too much love ever been bad for a child?  They have given us the opportunity to have a son to love and adore, we will forever love them for that gift.  It's that common love that gives us this open relationship. My sons birth grandmother said it best, when speaking about our relationship she said, "if you let it work, it just works".