Thinking about Van's birth mother

Well so far today has been one filled with emotion. We received the rest of Van's paperwork today with a lot of information about his birth mom and family. The information was bitter sweet as it caused me to feel deep sadness for his birth mother but these feelings were tempered with some happiness in that we have so much information to share with Van when he is older. To all of our non-adoptive friends and family (I say this as adoptive families already know and generally abide by this rule), we will not be offering any information about Van's adoption circumstances as this is his story to tell. Rest assured the circumstances are not bad, just very sad (as any adoption story is). We ask that you please respect this rule and refrain from asking us. Many thanks in advance :)

To Van's birth mother: We thank you from the bottom of our hearts and souls for your very brave and difficult decision to give your child up for adoption. We will have you in our hearts always and raise Van to remember your sacrifice with respect and love. We will love this child with every ounce of our being and try our very best to help him grow into a caring and respectful young man. Although he will always be the child of your blood he will be the child of our hearts. He will be our son as completely as if he were of our blood. He will however always know of his roots and will be raised to be proud of his heritage. We will bring him back to his country of birth for visit(s) and hope that one day he will have an opportunity to meet you again. THANK YOU!!!