As we approach Mother’s Day weekend, we wanted to share a great keepsake idea – for adoptive parents, adopted children and birth parents alike – from one of our adoptive families.
When Jerry and Laura connected with their first daughter Sofie’s birth parents almost three years ago, they were blessed to lay the foundation for a good relationship with Sofie’s birth parents and extended birth families. Laura was even in the delivery room at Sofie’s birth.
As their relationship developed, Laura knew she wanted to create some kind of a keepsake that would be special for her future child and her child’s birth parents.
While trolling online, she came across a company making commemorative paw prints for animals that had passed away out of precious metal clay (PMC). She thought to herself, “wouldn’t that be cool with fingerprints?”
Laura found a local jewelry store in Colorado called Bead-It that could help her work with the silver clay. “I told her, I’d like to do four fingerprints because we have four parents involved,” Laura says. “And I’m not quite sure about shapes. We just kind of brainstormed the butterfly, and she did a beautiful job!”
Laura also made a keepsake for Sofie’s birth parents with a fingerprint from their daughter. The couple keeps in touch with Sofie’s birth parents by pictures and letters, calls, emails and a special Shutterfly page with photos. They also hope that the jewelry will become a special connection between their two families as well.
“We will likely attach it to a charm bracelet for our birth mom, so we can send other memories to her as well in charms (like first lock of hair, 2nd tooth, etc. since they make charms you can put stuff in),” Laura says.
Just last week, Laura and Jerry were overjoyed to welcome their second daughter Lilian into their lives! And again, they’re planning to create a similar keepsake for both birth parents and daughter – only this time, with a dragonfly since Lilian has some Asian heritage.
“I don’t know what we’d do if we ever had a boy!” Laura says jokingly.
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If you live in the Colorado area, get in touch with Laurel at Bead-It to learn how to make your own keepsake necklace. Laura says PMC clay can be found online and that many jewelry stores even offer classes on how to make such jewelry. Or you can watch the how-to video below to learn how to make one at home.
The American Adoptions family wishes Jerry, Laura, Sofie and Lilian – and both girls’ birth families – a very happy Mother’s Day weekend!
