Adoptee & Birth Mother Reunion Gifts

Keepsakes

• For a mother who has memories of her son or daughter before the child was adopted, a keepsake gift from the heart can evoke a special memory. If you are particularly creative, design a quilt for your child that represents those feelings. Patch together patterns or images focusing on positive imagery: hearts that represent love, hugs that represent a welcoming spirit, and any other images that evoke joy. If you don't know how to sew, consider buying a quilt that you can personalize. If you are an adoptee giving a gift to your birth mother, add baby, childhood, and other important life transitioning photos from your life, like your graduations and wedding, to a quilt. Consider buying special adoption greeting cards or notecards as a memento gift that displays your genuine feelings while adding some light-hearted humor and warm greetings to the reunion.

Jewelry

• Reuniting with a parent or child brings up strong emotions, and maybe feelings of confusion, guilt, anger or resentment as well. Instead of focusing on past mistakes and faults, focus on creating a renewed, loving relationship. Necklace pendents can signify a fresh start; heart pendents are the most common type of reunion jewelery because they represent love. Also consider personalizing the necklace by requesting that your birth mother or child's name be monogrammed. A mother reuniting with her son may buy him a ring, a personalized watch with your picture on the face, or a dog tag with a scripture or quote relating to family unity.

Bonding Gifts

• Either son, daughter, or mother can open up light-hearted lines of communication through music. Find out what she loves listening to and create a music CD of her favorite tunes or musical genres. Making a CD will let that person know you are genuinely interested in her interests. Or give a gift of your own favorite songs as a way of sharing something about yourself.

Creative Arts

• If you want want to showcase your creative talents and take a "made-from-the-heart" approach, paint or draw a picture of your daughter, son, or birth mother and have it custom framed. If you have poetic abilities, write a poem about how you sincerely feel about reuniting and how much you cherish your newfound relationship. Create digital art using calendar creation software that allows you to insert photos and loving symbols that represent warm moments and new-direction images for the future.

Photo Album and Family Tree

• A scrapbook or picture album is another gift that can initiate the bonding process. Both parent and child can begin to build up a scrapbook or photo album together. Before giving the photo album or scrapbook as a gift, add in photos of yourself. Pictures of the extended birth family from the birth mother can be a gift to an adoptee to further his understanding of his newfound genealogy and family tree. Then make a joint commitment to complete the scrapbook or photo album with new photos of everyone together. This way, you will start the process of developing a positive relationship while capturing and saving these experiences along the way.