In yesterday’s post I talked about writing a letter to your child, one that attempts to answer the big question on every adopted person’s mind: “Why?”

If you don’t know how to begin, one place to start might be to read the words of those women who have gone before you. I know of at least one resource that has collected letters from birthmothers to the children they placed for adoption.

It’s called "I Wish For You a Beautiful Life: Letters from the Korean Birth Mothers of Ae Ran Won to their Children." (Located in Seoul, Korea, Ae Ran Won is a home for women in crisis pregnancies. About 15 percent of the women who stay there choose to parent their children; the rest entrust their children to adoption, largely because of Korea’s heavy stigma against single motherhood.)

This book is not for young children, and it may not be easy for you to read, either. (Have some tissues nearby, just in case.) The letters bring up very difficult emotions…feelings that might hit you especially hard as you go through your crisis pregnancy. I’m talking about emotions such as shame, fear, and especially guilt. Over and over, the mothers in this book express the fear that their children may not be able to forgive them for giving them up.

Many of the letters also communicate the deep desire to someday reunite (an important point, since many people think that in international adoption, birthmothers are simply abandoning their children and do not wish to see them again).

I'd love to see a similar book from every country, especially the United States (where decisions to place may sometimes arise from more complex reasons). If such books were more common, there might be less prejudice against birthmothers, as well as less suspicion of us and fear of our motives.

These women do not want to overshadow or take the place of adoptive mothers, but only to be allowed to love their children from afar and, if possible, come to know them someday. Far from being coldhearted or not wanting their children, these women have a powerful love for their babies. They arrive at adoption because of external circumstances they could not overcome.

The language is simple, and the reader may feel that some nuances may have suffered in the translation. The letters themselves can also seem a little basic at times, and you may hope that your own letter will be more descriptive and answer more questions.

Apart from those minor flaws, however, I Wish ForYou A Beautiful Life is a must-read for everyone involved in adoption. It expresses the grief, sadness and longing that go along with every decision to entrust one’s baby to others, and it teaches the important lesson that birthmothers never forget.