Dear Birthparent Letter

The "Dear Birthparent Letter" is so absolutely intimidating. The mother of our child will make her decision as to whether or not to choose us as parents for her child based upon this glimpse into our lives.

My "Dear Birthparent" letter was off to an auspicious start. Despite 12 years of Catholic schooling my penmanship is abysmal. I finally got the letter to a somewhat acceptable state (under 3 pages and highlighting all the pertinent details of my life, philosophy on parenthood, relationship with husband and family etc.). It took me approximately 3 hours to successfully copy this (not messing up on the last line of the second page for the 9th time) to the beautiful stationary we had selected.

My handwriting is horrible. For starters, it tilts the wrong way. I believe that handwriting (if right handed) is supposed to slant to the right, mine slants to the left. If you've ever seen a junior high boy write in cursive, that pretty much sums it up. People always comment on how crazy my handwriting is and how it doesn't fit my personality. So, I was very concerned about the birthparents not being able to read the letter at all. I called our caseworker to see if I could also provide a typewritten version as a crib sheet. She didn't believe that it could be that bad. I brought it in to show her the illegibility and she recommended I find someone to write the letter for me. This was the second time in the history of the agency that this has had to be done. Excellent! My mom was kind enough to help out with this task. Very sweet of her but very humiliating for me.