When you are going through the adoption process with an agency, they will more than likely ask you to put together a Dear Birthparent letter to show to Birthparents that are considering adoption.  Even if you are doing an independent adoption, you might want to write a letter so that if you are connected with a Birthparent you can share the letter with them.  The letter is similar to a mini autobiography.  It is a chance for you to tell a Birthparent about who you are, what you like to do and what your family, friends and extended family are like.

Each agency usually has their own guidelines on how they want a letter to be written.  Most have some of the same underlying themes.  I have included in this article examples of what to include in a Dear Birthparent letter.  After working with Birthparents for nine years, I compiled this list to include some of the basic questions and concerns they might have when selecting an adoptive family.

Your Dear Birthparent letter should be between 3-6 pages long.  Any less than that and you cannot possibly give a Birthparent enough information.  Any more than that and it gets to be too much information and they can become overwhelmed or forget things.  When a Birthparent is looking at profiles, they will more than likely view anywhere from 5 to 20 profiles.  If a letter is too long it might begin to get lost among all the other information that they have gleaned from other letters.

The letter should include a brief description of your childhood, family background, family life, extended family and education.  Descriptions of your marriage such as how you met your spouse and what you love about him/her are important as well.  Birthparents need to know that you are in love and that you have a stable family life and extended family connections.  Often Birthparents are considering adoption because they want their child to be raised in a two parent, stable environment and they want to feel as though things are going to stay that way.

Let Birthparents know about you personally.  What kind of personality do you have?  What are your interests and hobbies?  Do you have any personal goals?  What kind of work do you do?  Are you in good health?  Do you exercise?  What are your religious views and your spouse’s religious view?  They need to get a good sense of who you are.

Talk about your parenting philosophies.  Are you going to share in all the duties?  Do you see one spouse being more playful and one more nurturing?  Birthparents are always interested in your child care plans.  Is one of you going to stay at home with them?  If so, for how long?  Do you have a friend or family member that will provide childcare or baby sit?

It is always a good idea to touch lightly on what brought your family to adoption.  You do not need to share your whole personal fertility story if that is why you chose adoption.  You can just state something like “after years of trying to have children, we decided we just wanted to be parents and biology was not important to us”.  I had one family that shared the story of how they had suffered many miscarriages.  This was what drew a Birthmother to them.  You don’t have to over share, but include a small description.

Describe your feelings about adoption and your plans for sharing adoption information with your child.  Birthparents want their child to know that they loved them and that is why they chose adoption.  They never want them to feel as though they were unloved or unwanted, so this is an important topic as well.

Describe what level of openness you feel comfortable with.  Do you want to meet them?  Do you want to do a direct placement (where the baby leaves the hospital with you)?  What kind of contact do you want once the baby is placed with you such as direct contact or sharing information through the agency?  Don’t promise anything that you don’t feel comfortable with and don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.  It is ok to state that you are willing to meet with them and discuss future contact.  Each adoption situation is different and is good to leave the door open at least a little because you don’t want to shut it on a good situation.

When writing your letter, handwrite it if possible.  However, if you have horrible handwriting, then type it using a casual font.  Always sign it with a pen/pencil.  Stay away from a business format and make the letter more personal.  Include your feelings and thoughts.  If you are used to writing business letters, then have someone critique it when you are done.  You don’t want to appear cold in your letter.  Address the letter “Dear Birthparent” or “Someone Special” or something along those lines.  Don’t address it “Dear Birthmother” because Birthfathers are a part of the process too.  Thank them for choosing adoption and considering (NOT choosing) you.  They are reading many letters and even though they are reading your letter they might not necessarily choose you and you don’t want them to feel pressured.  Put your letter on colored or printed stationary.  If you are into gardening, then use paper with a flower border.  If you like sports, then your paper could have a sports theme border.

The most important thing that you need to do is to make the letter unique and let them know who you are.  I once had an adoptive father who wrote his letter as though his dog had written it.  They had had the dog for 15 years and so the dog knew a lot about him.  His sense of humor was what caught a Birthmother’s eye.  Use your agency, friends or family as a sounding board when you are writing a letter.  It is always a good idea to get a second opinion.  You want it to be the best it can possibly be because this letter is the first connection that a Birthparent can make with you.  You want it to be a good, honest unique description and connection between you and the Birthparent.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 11th, 2006 at 5:19 am and is filed under Adoption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.