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Melissa

Dear Birth Parent:
I am grateful that you have taken the time to allow me to tell you a little bit about my family and our desire to adopt. I am Melissa and my daughter is LaMya. Mya and I came together through adoption several years ago and we are excited to expand our family through adoption again.

I always dreamed of having a large family and growing up in the 70’s with the Brady Bunch on TV, I somehow thought I would have six children. I was the only girl in a family with two brothers and I always wanted a sister too. I started my career young and was very busy advancing through my profession and just never found the right “guy” to marry and have children. I envisioned that if by a certain age I did not get married I would have children on my own. It seemed so scary to me to do this on my own, but now that I have, I can’t believe I waited so long. My journey to Mya took some interesting twists and turns but seems to be the way it was supposed to be for her and me.

As I said, my name is Melissa and I am a Registered Nurse and I own my own consulting business. I work from home and can set my own schedule and hours. After careful planning I found a way to make a good living while minimizing the number of hours I have to work to achieve that security. This work schedule not only allows me to be a stay at home mom, but also allows me to be very active in classes with Mya, play dates with other children, trips to the parks and play areas. I grew up with a mother who did not work for the first few years of our lives and I liked the idea of being able to be there 24/7 for my children and their needs. I have always loved children and even worked in a Children’s Hospital for many years. Babies and dogs; that is what are always attracted to me; no matter I am there they are, looking for me and talking to me and playing with me. In addition to my nursing training which deals with child development, I have taken a lot of training and classes through foster care training on early childhood education, child development, attachment, discipline, and child rearing. This education has been most enjoyable as I have been able to do this through play/classes with other mothers and their young children. We have made several good friends through these groups and we get together weekly for play dates at various locations. It has been a joy to see all the other children growing up like Mya has been.

Mya is my 4 year old daughter who arrived through adoption. She trained me in as a mother and she is the light of my life. Her facial expressions are priceless. She is so smart and I always feel like I am playing catch up to her imagination. At times she seems like she is one step ahead of me. She is talkative, boy is she talkative. She sings to the videos on the county music station and loves to listen to her head phones in the car that play her favorite Kids Bop music (modern songs that kids sing). She is usually very loud in the back seat and I spend the time laughing at her in the front seat. How I wish my car was wired for video; I could put her on the internet for all to enjoy. She loves her Barbie’s and her “babies” and is often found with one baby on her hip and the other in the stroller. She loves to role play being the “mom” and I am often the “dad” or the “gramma” or the “kid”. She has such a great imagination. But I think the quality I love about her most is her compassion. She loves to be the helper with the younger kids and will often be seen herding them here and there.

My mother Patricia lives with Mya and I as well. She is older and did not like living on her own; it was too lonely. So, when Mya arrived I proposed that she move in with us to “help me out” but really it was because I wanted to help her out and make my family larger. I grew up with grandmothers who were very involved in my life even though they did not live with us and I wanted this for my daughter. It has been great having gramma here. She is still independent and loves to play with Mya. Mya usually wakes gramma in the morning with a kiss before crawling into bed for some cuddle time. Then it is up for the morning of watching cartoons together while snuggling on the chair. Gramma loves to read to Mya and they play cards and the “matching game”. As Mya has gotten older now she “reads” to gramma which involves familiar books she knows by heart. She uses different voices to animate the stories too which is very funny. Mya will often bypass me to ask gramma for things as she thinks gramma is a big pushover; which she is.

My younger brother and his wife live close by and they had their first child. We spend holidays together and we get together quite often for football parties, baseball games and general family time usually involving dinner or special events. I have several long term friends which make up an extended “family” for us. They have children of their own too and we spend a lot of time together during the holidays and they are often more than willing to come with us to the Zoo, the Fair or any activity we have planned. There is a running joke of who Mya likes more, my cousin or my friend. They all loved her the minute she came home with me and they are anxious to have me add to my family. They are just as excited as I am about adoption and I have had to keep them in the loop during this process. They make such a great support system and serve as great role models on parenting and relationships.

Mya and I are very adventurous individuals who like to be active doing just about anything. We love to go to the Children’s Museum or the various indoor play areas to climb and slide and run around. Swimming is also a big part of our lives with Mya and me taking swimming classes when she was only 18 months old. She loves the water so much that I am convinced she is part mermaid. We often go to the local parks for walks as well as visiting any one of the numerous friends we have that also have children. Evenings and weekends are reserved for “our time”. Time we can just spend sitting in our jammies, playing Barbie’s or the matching game, watching a movie, dancing, playing outside or our favorite: cuddling on the couch. We both love to snuggle and kiss and tickle each other while talking about our favorite part of the day.

We live in a suburb of the big city with lots of local activities for us to do. Our neighborhood is busy with lots of children of all ages and ethnicities. Mya is multi racial and thus a diverse neighborhood, school and church are important to me. We are within walking distance to our local elementary school which has good test scores and lots of diversity. Our local city Parks and Recreation department is very active with lots of child and family friendly activities throughout the year. We have attended the Barnyard Dance, Family Fun Night, the Great Pumpkin Hunt, Easter Egg Roll and Breakfast with Santa. There are several farms close to where we live so we can go and pick out our own pumpkins and go on hay rides as well as petting the many animals living there too. The zoo is a favorite of ours and we have two in our area; each offering different types of animals and attractions.

Mya and I attend the local Catholic Church on Sundays and Mya is starting Sunday school soon. This church is the one I grew up in as a child and is a wonderful community of friends as well. I must admit, however, that I do not follow all the “rules” of the Catholic Church, but I have a strong faith and enjoy the sense of community that this provides. Mya was baptized last year and enjoys going to church to shake everyone’s hands during the service. We attend the Carnival each year as well which provides much humor as is proven in the video’s we have in the computer.

Thank you for listening to me babble about myself, my daughter, my family and our lives. We are very excited about adding to our family through adoption. We keep in contact with Mya’s birth mother and see her frequently as well. I have found great joy in creating a large “family” to include Mya’s birth mom and birth family. This has brought us blessings we did not expect and has provided me an opportunity to grow in ways I had not imagined. We/I am open to an open adoption in whatever form that takes and I have a proven track record with Mya’s birth mom.