Finding my Mojo.

The hardest part about filling out the adoption paperwork for us was creating the profile. The profile includes the pictures of your family and your letter to the Birth parents. What are you supposed to say? Pick me??? Pick me?!?!?! Pick me!!!!!!

Try to ask any one's opinion on the matter and you will get a different suggestion from every person. I didn't ask when it came to the letter. I did ask about our pictures, though. In our profile picture we had a picture of Jedi (our ginormous dog) and boy did that get suggestions. Just about every person I asked suggested that we leave Jedi out of it. Most people's reasoning was along the lines of "not everyone likes dogs" "Some people are afraid of dogs." "Dogs and babies make people nervous." And while I appreciated the honesty, I honestly thought it was a stupid suggestion.

If our birth mother was not comfortable placing her baby in a home with large dogs, we were not the couple for her anyway. What were we supposed to do? Only show and say things that were not really us? Just the good stuff that makes us look fun and cute, and "LOOK WHAT AWESOME PARENTS WE'D MAKE!" I just wasn't comfortable with it. And so it stayed. As did the picture of me sitting on the floor in a my messy family room, with no make-up, hair in the pony tail and Ani in my lap.

The day that we met our birth mother her case worker asked her if she would like to share with us why she had chosen us. She shared some of the traits and hobbies that stood out to her from our letter and then she said, "You guys looked so normal."

I have realized lately that I have worried too much about what I should say and who might read my "letters" here on my blog. I have gotten away from who I really am, and what I really want to say. My in-laws read this. People from my favorite ward. My sisters. Extended family. Old friends. New friends. Random strangers. But while I may (or may not) love you, I don't write for you.

I write for me. Occasionally for my husband so he will know what I am thinking. I also write for Scrunch and in a way to honor her Birthmom. And they already know that I sometimes have ice cream for breakfast, have a tendency to lean towards a little irreverence, am obsessed with all things knitting, and that my favorite curse word is 'bastard'.

**If you only come to check out pictures of the most darling daughter, don't worry. Those pictures are staying. She really IS that cute in real life. Cuter even.