the right words

What do you say to a woman you don't know, but gave you the greatest gift of your life? 

Since we finalized K's adoption, I've been wanting to write a letter to his birthmother. It's taken me months to find the right words (they probably still weren't the perfect words), muster the courage to put them on paper, and have them translated into hangul. Not sure why I found this to be such a daunting project. I am more than happy to brag about my adorable son and can talk about him for hours on end. Part of the reason is the utmost respect I have for her and the decision she made. Perhaps another reason is that I can just gush and gush about how much I love this little guy, what he means to our family, and how grateful we are that she chose an adoption plan for him, but I didn't feel this would be well received with our cultural differences and was sure much of the emotion would be lost in translation. 

With his birthday in the near future, I was feeling an urgency to get this done, in the event that she checks his file on his birthday. We will most likely never have any direct contact with her, but we can send letters to his "file" and she might check it. 

I am happy to say, the task is completed. The letter and photos are in the mail, and we will never have a "first" letter to write to her again. The letter ended up being much more factual than I would have liked; telling her about his personality, what he likes to do, some of his developmental milestones, and of course, assuring her that he is a happy, healthy, well loved little boy. I don't expect to ever hear anything back from her, that's just not the norm in Korea, but I feel good knowing we've done our part, and if she does decide she would like to know more about him, the letter will be there waiting for her.