Finally Forever: The Life-Changing Letter and Our Decision to Adopt

It seems like only yesterday when my daughter was just a little baby. I can’t believe it! My daughter is 4 years old today.  In honor of her birthday, I am republishing this letter I wrote to my family and friends telling them that my husband and I were planning to adopt. To all those who have come to the same conclusion or to those who are contemplating it, I wanted to share this letter with all of you.

To the ones we love:

First, we want to tell you how much we’ve appreciated your kind words of encouragement and support over the last several years as we’ve gone through some very tough times. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Jason and I spoke a few weeks back about the current direction we’re taking with building our family. We said. “If one more negative thing happens on the current path we’re forging, we have to change direction.” After four miscarriages, failed IVF attempts, embryos of the likes nobody has ever seen before, countless false starts with multiple donors, a historically stellar donor who didn’t respond to the meds (which nobody had ever seen before) and now…a letter from our current donor telling us that she sadly needs to bow out, we have decided that the signs are quite obvious. I’m not supposed to get pregnant.

It was just the other day that I told Jason that I had a feeling that something wasn’t quite right and that this wasn’t going to work out. This wasn’t negativity. I have had a sixth sense about these things for the last four years– always knowing when I was going to miscarry and always knowing when something was going to be sidetracked or derailed. Jason has learned not to question it since it has proven right every time. Yesterday’s letter from our current donor did not come as a surprise when she kindly wrote that she was not going to be able to continue. Our feeling is that she likely did us the biggest favor one could ever do.

We are planning to start the adoption process. I’m writing this down for severalreasons. First, I need to just write it. There are many feelings that go along with it, and it just needs to be written down. Second, you all deserve to hear our thoughts in completion, however, to be honest, the thought of repeating ourselves multiple times doesn’t sound like the making for a great Sunday.

Third, I don’t want anyone to have a moment of sorrow, pity or “feeling sorry” for us. If you do, we would prefer that we were out of ear-shot. We want to embrace this new direction with fervor and positivity and don’t want any sadness to go along with it. While I’m not suggesting that you would feel pity for us, I know how supportive you’ve been in the past with regards to the miracle of a positive pregnancy, and I can imagine that for family members, sadness and loss might be an emotion that would cross the heart.

I’m telling you now, we’re OK. In fact, there is something very exciting about going through a process that can only end in the positive rather than rolling the dice another time.

The signs have been pointing in this direction for so long now that it’s almost embarrassing how long it’s taken for us to stop forcing the proverbial square peg into the round hole. Dad always told me “don’t force it” whenever I tried to get something to inappropriately “fit” when I was a kid. It’s the very advice that Jason remembered yesterday and repeated out loud, as if Dad were sitting with us and giving us his counsel. I believe he was there. And if he were alive today, I imagine this is what he would have said.

I’ve been asking for a sign but refusing to see them–filling in false starts and skewed plans with new donors, more drugs and more invasive procedures. It’s enough. I’ve always loved the idea of adoption; although, it scares the bajeezus out of me. I feel confident that some little souls have been waiting for us to open our eyes and our hearts so that they can be born, and we can all be mutually blessed by their love and energy our entire lives. What an honor.

I had given up my genetic tie with my children many months ago, and Jason and I just want to have a family. We feel that our loved ones who are looking over us from above have been shouting to us for years but we shut them out in favor of what we thought we should be doing and what we thought we wanted. But when it comes down to it, I don’t need to be pregnant to feel the love in my heart, and Jason doesn’t need to have fathered these children to be the best Dad these children will ever know. At this point, we need to put it in the hands of whomever is guiding us to make this decision. We feel it strongly, and we’re not going to fight it anymore.

I am excited to say that I believe now that I will be a mother in the next year. You have been so supportive of us through these very trying four years of agony. And they have been agony. They have taught me patience. They have taught me resilience. They have made me strong. Jason and I have never been more ready.

Our request at this point is that you continue to be the amazing people that you are and support us full throttle in this next journey that can only result in the very thing we’ve wanted all this Time: a baby.

So no more tears– let’s go full steam ahead. Oh yes, and you can close your mouths now. You had to know this was coming eventually.

Lots of love,

Robyn

In celebration of our daughter, Talia Paige Silverman, born February 19th, 2009, through the amazing and beautiful process of open adoption. In our hearts and lives forever, our sweet baby girl.

Dr. Robyn Silverman is a child development specialist, professional speaker and parenting expert who became Mom to daughter, Tallie Paige & son, Noah Stone through the miracle of open adoption. 

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