Dear future Birth Mom,

We haven’t met yet. I don’t know your name or what you look like. I don’t know where you live or what your life looks like. I don’t know if you are carrying our child already or if he/she has yet to be conceived. But none of that seems to stop me from thinking of you and praying for you everyday.

My husband and I have been hoping for children for years. We first started talking about our family while we were dating around eleven years ago, and we haven’t stopped thinking about it since. We’ve made all our big life decisions around the idea of having a family of at least five. But God had other plans… We spent six years battling infertility and riding the emotional rollercoaster of heartache, loss, and medical procedures before God called us a different way. And here we are in August of 2016. We’ve currently been waiting for over eight months for you, thinking about who you are and what to expect.

You see, it’s impossible for me to think of my child without also thinking of you. There is no way for me to erase you from the picture of who my child will be. There will always be traces of you that will reside in our son or daughter. It might be your hair or your eyes or your ears. There may be behaviors or thought processes or interests he or she will have gotten from you. Tiny, perfect reflections of the brave woman he or she came from. And these things that I’ll be able to tell don’t come from my husband or me… whenever I see them, I will smile and think of you. And I will speak lovingly to our child about you – his/her first mother. The mother who loved her child so much that she made the intense and selfless sacrifice. A loss that finally gave us the ability to be parents.

Everyday when you pop into my mind, I pray. I pray that you are healthy and happy and safe. I pray that you have food on your table and a roof over your head. I pray that you are not scared, that you don’t feel alone. I pray that you find strength and peace on this journey… the same strength and peace I constantly ask God to grant me in my heartache of childlessness. And I pray that out of my pain and yours that something beautiful will come. That we will somehow be able to bring one another some peace in all of this. And I hope that you will know how deeply we already love our son/daughter.

Sending love and prayers to you today and everyday!