Dear Friend,
We are in awe of the choice you are about to make. We recognize the difficulty of your decision and also the courage and love you must possess in order to make it. We are immensely grateful to you for considering us as you make a plan for your child. Let us tell you a little about ourselves.
Sarah grew up in a rural part of Virginia where her pets included two sheep. A lifelong love of animals led her to become a vegetarian as a teenager, and she has maintained a vegetarian diet ever since. She grew up in a family where spending time together was important and family dinners were the norm. Sarah has always been a bookworm, reading to her little brother on the school bus in elementary school, graduating valedictorian of her high school class, and eventually becoming a reading teacher. Sarah loves being around children and finds her job very fulfilling. When she’s not teaching, Sarah’s current interests include running, knitting, and spending time with family and friends, especially in the summers when she’s not working. She feels very lucky to live near her best friend since toddlerhood. She loves living and working in a diverse community full of cultural and social opportunities, and she looks forward to exploring new facets of the community through the eyes of her children.
Josh was raised in rural Pennsylvania in a very close knit family. He enjoyed annual family vacations at the beach and spent most holidays with his extended family which lived nearby. His interests as a kid included soccer, boy scouts and meteorology. His desire to live in a city took him to Pittsburgh for college where he majored in accounting and is a practicing certified public accountant today. Josh’s current interests include running, yard work, cooking and spending time with his family. He played recreational soccer for a number of years as an adult and met many close friends. Additionally, a couple of his college friends live close by, and they too have families with children. They all get together several times a year and he enjoys seeing his daughter and their children play together.
We met through an online dating site in early 2010. While dating, Josh supported Sarah through marathon training and achieving her National Board teaching certification, and Sarah supported Josh through finding and starting a new job. As we fell in love, we got to know each other’s families, took a vacation in Costa Rica, and went on several wine tasting weekends. We were married at a vineyard in December 2011 and honeymooned in Paris. Tres romantique! We then set our sights on buying a home starting a family. We knew from the beginning that it wouldn’t be an easy process, and we were right! But throughout our struggles with infertility and eventually a successful pregnancy, our love and support for each other grew. Raising a child together has been a wonderful adventure, and has brought us to value each other and our relationship even more. As working parents, it’s easy to get caught up in the business of day-to-day commitments and crises, but we try to take time for each other every day, even if it’s just collapsing on the couch together at the end of a long day. Now that we’ve started the adoption process we’re excited to talk about and plan for a new member of the family. We can’t wait to see where our next adventure as a family of four will take us!
Our daughter Grace is a sweet, spunky, creative two-year-old. She loves to play puzzles and hide and seek. She also loves to play with her “babies”, feeding them, wrapping them up, and putting them to sleep. She has named her favorite baby doll Ollie, after her cousin who was born last year. One of Grace’s favorite activities is cooking with us. She helps her dad make smoothies every Wednesday, and she’s very proud that she knows where just about every tool and ingredient is in the kitchen. Grace enjoys playing with her friends at daycare and with a neighbor her age who lives down the street. She likes being around people, so outings like the zoo, playground or a baseball game are always a hit. But she also likes snuggle on our laps with a book. She’ll be in a “big kid” bed soon, and we’re preparing for the adventure of potty training. We are amazed at how quickly she is growing up and learning, taking in every word and experience.
Parenting our daughter has been both our greatest joy and our greatest challenge. We love seeing ourselves in our daughter as her personality develops, and we try to spend as much time with her as possible. For us, parenting is a team effort. Sometimes this means that we are together with our daughter enjoying family activities like cooking and eating together. Having these times when we’re all together helps us set consistent expectations for Grace and learn from each other as we interact with our daughter together. Sometimes our team effort means that we are a tag team. Josh and Grace do the grocery shopping on Saturday mornings while Sarah does the laundry and cleans bathrooms. This allows Grace to get the undivided attention of one parent while the other parent accomplishes chores or has some free time and then is ready to take over parenting again. This is particularly important when Grace is going through a difficult behavioral phase or is sick, and needs all our attention and care. It’s comforting to know that when one of us needs a break we can count on the other for energy and fresh perspective. This eliminates or minimizes a lot of potential problems and ensures that our children will always feel loved and listened to.
We both come from close families. As children we both enjoyed vacations and holidays with family and we both experienced the support of our parents in church, school, and extracurricular activities. Family continues to be important to both of us now. Not only do we try to make lots of time to be together as an immediate family, but we continue to share vacations and holidays with our extended family. We both talk to our parents weekly on the phone and keep in touch with our siblings through phone, email and text. Both of our brothers have young children, and having our children feel close to their cousins as they grow up is important to us. Our families love Grace, and they are very excited about the prospect of our adopting another child.
We live in a wonderfully diverse and exciting part of the country. There are amazing opportunities for learning, culture, entertainment, athletic pursuits, civic engagement, being in nature, you name it! We have close friends in our neighborhood as well as throughout the broader community and frequent get-togethers with them individually or in groups gives us a strong support network and provides lots of fun experiences. All of our closest friends are also raising young children, and we get lots of advice, support, and humor from interactions with them. We are active in our church, participating in a parents’ group and serving on the children’s council there. This feeds our faith and gives us and our daughter a loving and nurturing community. Many of our friends are aware of our desire to adopt, and they can’t wait to meet the next member of our family!
We are so honored that you are considering us as adoptive parents. We are thrilled at the possibility of a new child in our family and look forward to all the joy, love and laughter he or she will bring. We want our child to know who you are and the decision you made. We are happy to exchange pictures and emails with you as our child grows up, and we are open to occasional phone calls as well. We wish you the very best as you make this decision, and wherever your path takes you.
Kind regards,
Sarah, Josh and Grace
