Inked: Moms with tattoos

Laura Willard

Laura Willard, mom of two from San Diego, California, is a writer and editor for SheKnows.

I’d grown up thinking tattoos were awful. I would never get one. And then one day when I was in law school, I wanted a tattoo. However, I wanted it to be meaningful and nothing struck me, so I waited. A few years later, we were in the adoption process and received our son’s referral. I knew right away that I wanted a tattoo of his Vietnamese name. Things can and do go awry in adoptions, but I had to believe it would work out, so my husband and I went to Vegas and got tattoos of our baby’s Vietnamese name. Nine months later, we traveled to Vietnam and met him for the first time.

We went back to Vegas for second tattoo after we received our daughter’s referral from Ethiopia a few years later. Again, there were no guarantees. While we were in Vegas — right after we had the tattoos — we received the email informing us our case has passed Ethiopian court and she was our baby. We traveled to Ethiopia one month later.

Each of my children’s names from their birth countries are tattooed on my very lower hips (which is why I shared a pic of me getting one of the tattoos versus a finished product picture!), and my husband has them on his chest. I love them, and my kids like knowing that the names they had before they were part of our family are permanently inked on their mom and dad!