The Greatest Gift

This is a picture of Gabriella and her birth mom.

On Wednesday, July 13th we said good-bye to our birth mom. It was an extremely hard thing to do.

That morning as we drove to the hospital, I felt that we would be saying good-bye to her, so in the car we were sure to say a prayer for her. We prayed that she would not only feel the love we have for her, but also feel the love that our Heavenly Father has for her as well. We prayed that she would be strengthened by that love. And most importantly we prayed that she would know that Gabriella will also know who she is and that we all will always be eternally grateful to her.

Our birth mom came to the NICU and we gave her a few things. First, I told our sweet birth mom that Nic and I will never begin to understand everything she is feeling right now, or how she will feel in the future, but I let her know that we love her. That we sincerely love her and

that Gabriella is just not our daughter, but she is ours. That she belongs to all three of us. I told her that we were truly grateful for her allowing us to start this next chapter in our lives and that she will always be our angel.

Birth mom told us having an adoption plan for Gabriella was what was for the best. To me, that truly showed how much love she had for Gabriella. Adoption truly is about love.

Next, Nic and I presented her with some special items that we had for her. The first one is a bracelet. Gabriella has the same one and she wore it during her newborn photo-shoot.

The next item was a Willow Tree Figurine, it's called Keepsake: Kept forever in the heart. I first came across this figurine when I learned we were first matched. A friend had suggested looking at Willow Tree Figurines to give as a gift to our birth mom when we first met her. I couldn't find anything, but when I saw "Keepsake" I began to cry and I knew that his is something I would want to give her when it came time for placement.

Both my eyes and the eyes of our birth mom were filled with tears (I asked Nic if he cried at all and he said no-typical guy. haha).

I told our birth mom that no matter where we are in our lives and no matter where Gabriella is, and no matter where she is that we have a piece of each other with us.

After a few more tears we got up to really say good-bye. Hugs were given and more tears were shed. Nic said good-bye to our birth mom first and then it was my turn. I tried not to cry, but I just couldn't help it. Neither of us could. I just kept telling her thank you and how much we loved her. She said she loves us too. Which, was so wonderful to hear her say.

Her final words to me: "It's going to be amazing!"