This is part of our check-in with our hopeful adoptive parents to learn more about their adoption journeys and share their thoughts about topics of interest to the adopting community.

 

For many people, Mother’s Day is a day of celebration—a time to pay tribute to the mothers and mother figures in our lives.

But for those trying to start or expand their family through adoption, it’s a time of the year that triggers bittersweet emotions.

This week we asked our hopeful parents what does Mother’s Day mean to them.

As you’ll see, it’s a day that opens up old wounds but also gives rise to new hopes and an even stronger desire to become parents.

 

 

Mother’s Day takes on extra meaning for us this year as we are active in our adoption journey. As we hope to become parents, we are humbled by the enormous act of love by a mother placing a child for adoption. When we become parents, we will forever honor and respect our child’s birth mother—who loved her child first and always!

Megan and Mark

 

Mother’s Day to us as a LGBT home means we get to celebrate a child having two moms. Mother’s Day for us is just as much a day for us to celebrate a child we are lucky enough to make us moms. We want so badly to add to our family and look forward to macaroni frames and finger paint art.

Jenn and Sarah

This year, Mothers Day is bittersweet. For the past ten years it’s been a very emotional and difficult day for Kiley. You need to celebrate your mom, mother-in-law, sisters and sisters-in-law, all with a smile while inside you’re crumbling. And they should be celebrated, but it’s like being the only kid at Christmas who got nothing under the tree.

This year brings hope that we’ll be parents soon through adoption, but we realize that our blessing will mean another mother will be without her child and will carry that pain each Mother’s Day and every day. It is our hope that an open or semi-open adoption where we can communicate and share photos, videos, updates, etc. will help ease some of the pain.

Kiley and Mike

Mother’s Day is something that we’ve done a lot of thinking about. As two hopeful fathers, we are anxious that our future child might feel left out or saddened by Mother’s Day. However, we feel fortunate enough to have strong female role models in our lives, such as our own mothers and grandmothers, that our children might have grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and aunts to look up to. We also feel strongly that we can use Mother’s Day to educate and share our adoption journey with our children, so that they can grow up understanding the difficult decision their birth mother had to make in choosing adoption.
Daniel and Steven

This is our first Mother’s Day since we started our adoption journey.  We see it differently this year because our hearts are turned toward our future child’s first mama – whoever she may be.  We wonder how she is experiencing this holiday.  We wonder which emotions are stirring inside her.  We wonder if she has anyone speaking life, love, and hope to her.  We wonder if she knows she is worthy of honor and celebration.  Through all of this wondering,  we know one thing for sure – our hearts forever will be tied to hers.

Joanthan and Sharayah

This Mother’s Day and every day, I am very blessed to have the best title of Mommy to my amazing and miracle son who brings me more love and joy than I could ever imagine. While this day brings me so much joy, it also brings a lot of tough emotions, thinking of the long fertility journey we went through and children we never got to meet. We are also very hopeful and excited to be hopeful adoptive parents, as I absolutely cannot wait to be called Mommy once again by another amazing little angel who I can read lots of bedtime stories to, give lots of cuddles, hugs, & kisses, & love forever. It will warm my heart beyond words to see my children play together and share a bond for life. We are so thankful for our amazing Moms who give us the gift of unconditional love, support us in all we do, and have helped make us who we are today.’

Jen and Mike

Over the years, Mother’s Day has grown into a celebration of all the incredible mothers found within our lives. This includes our Aunts and Cousins, close family friends, remarkable teachers and mentors, and so many other amazing women who’ve helped bring children into this world. Our lives have been surrounded by such incredible ladies and we are grateful that their support and presence will continue as we grow a family of our own. And soon Mother’s Day will take on an entirely new significance for us, it will be a celebration of our child’s birth mother and her strength, dedication and her love.
Eric and Justin

Mother’s Day holds a lot of meaning for us, number one because of our amazing mothers who gave us so much growing up and still continue to love and support us into our adult years, but it also means another year without holding that title myself (Amy). I want to be the influential person my mother was to me to our child and hope and pray that one day soon I will hear the words “mom, mommy or mama.”

When that day comes I will be so incredibly honored to be in the same category as all the other mother’s out there. From birth to adoptive to step mothers and even woman who act like mothers to those they love. Mother’s Day is an honor that one day I hope to celebrate for me.

Amy and Phil

What Mother’s Day means to us is the opportunity to experience a celebration of this day with our adoptive child. And, thinking of Mother’s Day makes us wish to be parents even more. We would celebrate the holiday with our mothers so that all generations could be together on this joyous occasion. Other than that, Mother’s Day pays homage to the bond between mother and child, and we are excited to continue that with a child of our own.

Jackie and Anthony

Last year hurt and I was ultra sensitive. This year I know that every woman that has loved another through struggles, lifted spirits or cheered success has mothered life. I will pray knowing I am not alone. I plan to call a young lady I mentored to thank her for the practice.

Kimberly and Michael

 

As prospective adoptive parents, we look forward to celebrating many special occasions with our child. We see Mother’s Day as a particularly special day where we celebrate and honor all mothers and mother-figures in a child’s life, including biological moms, adoptive moms, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and friends. We look forward to the day when we can tell our child about all the women in our lives, past and present, who have helped pave the way for us to one day raise a child as a kind, caring, and loving person.
Danielle and Mike

Mother’s Day has become one of the most important holidays our family gets to celebrate each year. We longed to become parents for many years and were blessed with our daughter five years ago through adoption, before conceiving our son shortly after. As we hope to adopt again, Mother’s Day is a time to honor all birth moms in this world. They are true angels, both strong and courageous. As hopeful adoptive parents we hope I get to be a mother once again thanks to the gift of a birth mom.
Laura and Tommie

Mother’s Day has always been important to me (Galen). Mom and I have a tradition of gardening–fertilizing, planting, and mulching the beautiful flower gardens that surround my parents’ home. I have also enjoyed getting to join the brunch tradition with my mother-in-law. I admit that I also fantasize about what it would be like to develop our own traditions to celebrate the amazing mom that I know Nina will be to our adopted child. But Mother’s Day will also always be a day of gratitude to the brave woman whose heart-rending choice allowed us to start our family.

Galen and Nina

Growing up, I loved Mother’s Day. I had a goal of always being a mother, yet always knew that adoption would be my path. It was never a second choice, but something that I wanted to do. Now that we have adopted years ago, I realize how important the triad of the birth family, adoptive family, and the child is, and I am so thrilled that we had that journey to make my dream of becoming a mom a reality. I can only hope that with the selfless gift of a sibling for our daughter by a birth mother, the connection between her and me will be strong- mother to mother.

Jenn and Tony

For couples waiting to be parents, Mother’s Day can bring about melancholy, feelings of hopelessness or sadness from unresolved grief. While this is very true, it can be a time to garner support from the mothers in your life- a time to reflect upon what really makes a good parent, and to muster up excitement and put forth effort to grow and develop the qualities you would like to embody as an adoptive parent. You can even give the couples around you time to themselves and help watch the little ones in your life.  Find joy in the waiting- good things are worth the wait.
John and Kay