Stacy Cooper (SC) and Karen Smith (KS)

SC: I really at first didn’t want to pick the parents, but I went through an adoption agency that would give me information about certain families. I would just look them over and I kept going back to your profile, if you would call it that. And I just knew. It was something about what you had written in there about how you think the adoption is a really selfless act. And that was one thing that really stuck with me. I definitely think we made the right choice and I’m real happy I decided to meet you, because I don’t think right now I could have it any other way.

KS: Well Anna looks a lot like you, Stacy. Every time I see her eyes in particular, and when she’s got a lot of emotion she has this way of kind of flushing. It’s just amazing. It’s just so you. What is the best of you that you hope she always keeps?

SC: I hope that she has a love for life – That she doesn’t feel held back by anything. If she feels that she wants to do something, she’ll stop at nothing and she will do it.

KS: And she’s this spunky little thing. She’s always got these things she’s got to say. She’s had the biological questions of ”Did I grow in you?” So it’s like, ”No,” matter of factly, ”you grew in Stacy.” And I’ll talk her about it: ” I think you’re going to be tall” and I’ll say, ”That’s because both your birth parents are tall.” And she has at times said to me ”you’re my real mother” and I’ll say ”no, we’re both real, she’s real birth mother I’m your real adoptive mother.” I’m prepared for one day the question — or maybe the teen angst comment — of ”You’re not my real mother.” So I think the toughest questions are yet to come. So what do you hope your relationship will look like with Anna when she’s an adult?

SC: I want to see her grow up. I think at some point when she turns eighteen if she chooses to have me come to special events in her life that would be up to you. And I think she would ask you anyways.

KS: I would want you there for special events in her life. I want you to know that every year I remember just as plainly as the first day just how grateful I am at being able to be a mother. You gave me a gift that I could just never, never thank you enough for.

SC: And that goes both ways: someone is raising the baby that I had, and that’s an incredible thing. It really is.