God put us on this journey together, so I thought it was only right to have Drew share some of his thoughts on being a daddy and promises he made to our birthmother! He's killing it as a daddy!
Dear Birthmother,
Thank you! We want to start by genuinely letting you know how thankful we are for you. We love how you were created by God, how you were raised, and how you have sacrificially thought of and raised another human being inside of you. Your love for that child, our child, is one of the most beautiful and kind things you could possibly do in this life. We know you love this child, and for that reason, we start by saying thank you.
We are thrilled to connect with you and introduce ourselves to you. We are both from Florida, have lived here our entire lives, and God willing, will raise our children and live in this beautiful state the rest of our lives. We met at church, the church where (I) am a pastor. My wife and I got married at this church, have many dear friends at this church, and together we love to serve the people of this church. Our church, including our many friends of all different ages, has served as our second family, and has been an amazing place of love and support. We are so excited for our church family to meet and love our child just as we have been loved! Trust us, this baby will be loved and cared for not only by God, but by so many others.
Another way our child will be loved is by our families. My mom and dad live within driving distance and love being grandparents to my sister’s two children. My nephew and niece are so excited to meet and play with their cousin! My wife’s family lives even closer, only one town over from us. We see her family every week for Sunday dinner, and our child will have loving, caring grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and close family friends. We feel very humbled to have families who love us and provide us with support and encouragement.
Speaking of family, in our home, we already have 1 family member, our small dog named Holly. She is fluffy and white, only weighing about 11 pounds. Holly brings us great joy and compared to most dogs, she is very relaxed and sweet. Her favorite thing is to lay on our living room carpet looking out at the kitchen waiting to see if any food falls on the floor so she can get a treat. She has been around our nephews and nieces and does a great job of keeping herself off of young children.
I love being a “dog dad” to Holly, but I want to assure you how humbled and excited I am to be a dad to a child. One of the best things I have ever experienced is having a dad who was present and active in my life. He was not perfect, and I know I definitely am not perfect, but just like my dad, I plan on being a present and active dad to our child. I plan on teaching our child to fish, to be respectful to adults, to eat fried chicken, how to drive, how to read the Bible, and a million other things. The one thing I want our child to know when they see their dad is that no matter what, that dad is “for them,” he is on their side and has their back no matter what. I can’t wait to be that man for our child.
We feel like it’s really important to share with you about our home and neighborhood, because we want to assure you that our child is in a warm and loving home. We purchased our home a few years ago and my wife has done an amazing job of making it feel “homey.” It has good size bedrooms, an open floor-plan, along with a pool, small cottage, basketball hoop, and large back yard. We are on the back of our street so cars very rarely drive by which makes it a great place for kids to play. Our neighbors have 2 young children who regularly have friends at their house and who play together in the front yard. Our favorite thing about our neighborhood is that we have a park and a playground just a couple houses down from us! This park is a great place for our child to run around, play, and enjoy time with future friends.
Another blessing of our neighborhood is that we live less than a mile from our local elementary school and high school. Our desire is to send our child to these “A” rated schools, and to know their friends who are also from our same neighborhood. We already volunteer at the elementary school and we are so impressed with how caring the school is to children who come for all different racial and cultural backgrounds. We are extremely confident that this is a great school with caring teachers who will educate our child well.
We plan on raising our child in the same way that we treat one another, with love and forgiveness. Over the course of our marriage, we have learned what it means to love each other even when we make mistakes. We have learned how to forgive, how to move past hurt feelings and move towards each other with kindness. Our hope, is that we will bring our child into our family and model that love and forgiveness to them and teach them to love and forgive others. Speaking of love, we know we love because God first loved us! So, knowing we are loved, we are open to loving other people, including you, birthmother. Even though we don’t know you, we love you. We hope to have a relationship with you in some capacity, and we would be willing to allow an open adoption to develop with you, as a trusting relationship between us grows over a period of time.
The most important thing we want to emphasize to you, besides what has already been said, is that we promise to be open and forthright about the fact that our child is adopted. We will share with them throughout their life the truth about their birthmother, about your love and care, your sacrificial love, and how we are so thankful for your role in our child’s existence. We will communicate with our child that adoption is a good thing, that it actually comes from God! Through faith in God’s son Jesus, we are “adopted” into God’s family, and so likewise, we have adopted our child into our family. They are fully ours, and fully loved, always and forever.
Thank you for trusting us with this precious gift. We are so humbled and blessed to be given the opportunity to raise this child. We hope to hear from you, and we want to tell you again, you are loved. Thank you and God bless you.
Your child’s adoptive father,
Drew
This is not the exact letter that was sent to Jaylen's birthmother, as that had some more personal parts to it.