“Mommy is this right?” 

My daughter shows me the note she’s writing. There are pictures of herself and her siblings taped haphazardly alongside her printed words. 

“It’s close!” I reply. 

“Well, what would make it perfect? I want it to be perfect!” 

I glance over the note, stopping at the words mom and I love you. But this note isn’t for me, it’s for her other mother. Her birth mom. 

Jasmine came to us at three month old. She was a beautiful baby girl. I still remember that first day—what it felt like to hold her as she cooed at us, giving her a bath in our kitchen sink, laying her in the crib we’d borrowed from a family member, turning off the light to her freshly painted room. 

I remember months in limbo. As foster parents, we cared for kids, but never knew for how long or when they’d get placed somewhere else. 

Jasmine was different. I loved her from day one, secretly wanting to keep her for always. 

Miraculously, seven years later, here I am with my daughter by my side.