guest blogger: the perfect family??

i bring to you today...... yet another beautiful birthmother.... =)
i met her on adoptionvoices.com. i specifically asked her to share with us her thoughts about and experience with picking a family for her sweet little girl.

My name is Alyssa (you can read lots more of her story on her sweet blog) and I placed my beautiful baby girl, Sara, on September 8, 2009, five days after she was born. She is placed with a wonderful family and this is how I came to know they were the family for the most important person in my life.

When I first started thinking about placing, my case worker asked what I wanted in a couple. I said one thing. I wanted them to do baby sign. It was (and is) super important to me. I work with special needs children and I have seen the freedom sign gives them, even if they only know three words or so. But as I started looking seriously, I came up with a LOT of things that I wanted.

I wanted a woman who was already a mother. She had to be a woman who was already a success at raising a child. I didn’t want to be the guinea pig. At the time I didn’t care if the child was adopted or biological. I wanted them to be 2 years or so apart. And it had to be a boy. I wanted a woman who loves children. She had to stay home full time, but I wanted her to have her degree just in case she needed to go back to work to help the family for a short time. She had to look kinda like me. She had to like to sew and craft. She had to love cooking and cook healthy, but not be such a health nut that candy wasn’t allowed. I wanted her to have a love of music. I have been playing the flute for over 10 years and it was and is important to me that my baby girl to have a love of music at an early age. I wanted her to like the outdoors. Not so much that they were half hippies, but enough to enjoy a camp out and a hike. I based a lot of what I wanted in a mother off of my sister, Megan. She is an amazing woman and mother.

As for the father, I was looking for the kind of man who I would like to eventually marry. I wanted him to have a great job that supports his family. I wanted him to have self-motivation. He needed to love his wife unconditionally. He had to respect all women and love to do service. I wanted him to be involved with his children. I wanted him to come home from work and play with his kids and help his wife with anything—cooking, cleaning, disciplining the kids, etc.

As for them as a couple, I wanted them to be strong in the LDS church. I wanted them to work as a team. I wanted them to live close to me. I wanted a VERY open adoption and needed a magical couple to, for lack of a better word, allow me to be a part of my baby’s life.

I got sick of looking for the perfect couple. It was depressing to me to go through profile after profile of seemingly “perfect” couples. I found one couple I liked, they had a few things I was worried about and that didn’t fit into most of my requirements, but I thought I would give it a try. I was at work at the time and just decided it would be easier to just call rather than start up an email conversation. So I called and asked a few questions. I asked about how they felt about open adoptions. She was very sketchy about it. She didn’t have a solid answer for me. I thanked her for her time and moved on. Not the ones for me. After that, I talked to my case worker. I told her I just couldn’t look blindly online anymore. So I gave her my very extensive list of requirements and she sent me a list of, get this, 15 couples. I was surprised she had found 2 let alone 15!! I started going through the list. I had a system by then. There are 4 sections to their profile. A message to the birthmother, a get to know you questionnaire , a sillier questionnaire with questions like what’s your strangest possession, and then information about their ages, jobs, plans on after placement, any pets, and children, hobbies and interests. I learned to always look at the last page first. Too many times I would start to like a family, and then I would get to the last page and it would say something like the mother would work part time. Or they had a huge dog. Or they had no musical interest. The third couple on that list…when I saw her face…I knew it. I felt a burning feeling right where that little baby was in my tummy. I swear she jumped when I opened their profile. I knew it then, without even reading a single thing on their profile that they were the ones for my baby. I read their profile and they were everything I wanted.

The mother and I could be mistaken as sisters and often do when we are together. They adopted a little boy 2 years ago and I love his birth mother, Alysha, to death. They have a wonderful open adoption with Alysha and I wanted what she had. They fit EVERYTHING on my list. They even do baby sign.

I found out that my cousin knows them and I asked about them. My cousin had nothing but good things to say about them! It was the one thing that made me know for sure that they were the ones for my baby. Not only did I think they were great from just reading their profile, but someone I have known since birth knows them and loves them. And so I announced to them that they were expecting a baby girl.

One thing I never thought of, but is a wonderful plus, is that the adoptive mother researches everything. Everything from formula, to how to keep a sleep pattern, to songs that will help your baby’s brain grow.

It has been just over 3 months since my precious heart was born. I know WITHOUT A DOUBT that she belongs with that family. I know it because I see the love her mother has for her in her eyes. I see the pure happiness in Sara’s face. I know she is safe. I know she is loved. I know that she is cared for and is terribly spoiled. I know they are the family for her, because God told me.