‘Deep gratitude’: Emotional letter to birth mom from adoptive mom goes viral

Amy, a Twitter/X poster using the handle @AmyL_IoM, recently shared details about her adoption, and her story is going viral because of a letter penned by her adoptive mother. 

“Just found an envelope of my adoption documents, much of which I’d never seen before,” Amy posted. Contained within was the letter from her adoptive mother, written to her birth mother, when Amy was 18 years old.

“This letter from my mom to my birth mother… I am a MESS,” Amy wrote.

“Amy approaches her 19th birthday,” the letter begins. “She … has grown into a beautiful, colourful, and talented young woman. … Should she ever make the decision to seek you,” the letter continues, “I want you to know that I have thought of you often over these 19 years and offered many prayers for you, wishing I could communicate the joy she has been to us.”

Amy’s adoptive parents were unable to have children of their own, and first adopted Amy’s older brother, Tim. “When he was nearly 3 years old,” the letter continues, “we received the gift of your beautiful baby girl.” Amy’s mother went on to write:

I will always be aware of the pain you will have experienced at the separation from your baby and the enormously unselfish decision you made to have her adopted. There will always be deep gratitude to you for she has given [us] unbelievable pride and joy.

We have nurtured her with all the love and care we were able to, offering her every advantage available to us. She will always be very precious to us, and she will always hold a very special place in our hearts.

“I think we are all dying to know if you have ever met your birth mother?” one reply to Amy’s tweet stated.

“I did,” Amy responded. “And my younger half brothers! I look exactly like her[.]”

Replying to her initial tweet, Amy included additional information about her adoptive mother. “As this is gaining some traction, thought I’d tell you about my mom,” she wrote, adding: “She bulldozed through a cancer diagnosis, so many surgeries and courses of chemo for nearly 10 years until it took her in 2013, and although we miss her enormously, her gentle and calming impact on our small corner of the world … is still felt.”

“She would tell me as a child that, ‘you weren’t made in my womb but in my heart’ and reminded me every week that I was chosen,” Amy wrote. “She had a deep Christian faith which makes sense given that she was an actual angel.”