Jeremiah and Susan

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From Us to You

Dear Expectant Mother,

Thank you. Thank you for reading this, thank you for choosing adoption, thank you for giving life to your baby, and thank you for considering us to parent your precious child.

We are so grateful to be adoptive parents already to our daughter, Gabriela. This journey has been so incredible that we can’t wait to do it again!

We have such love and powerful respect for our daughter’s birth mom. In the messages we share, the words that keep coming out from both of us are “thank you.” She is thankful to us for caring for and loving her daughter, and we are so grateful to her for entrusting us with her baby and helping us become a family. We have this beautiful bond of being brought together by circumstances that none of us planned on, but that has turned into a situation where the best way to capture it is just to say “ thank you.” That is what we hope to share with you someday. This is the beauty of adoption.

We know how beautiful and powerful adoption is because we are living it. And it has been so wonderful we are hoping and praying to once again expand our family through adoption. It wouldn’t be possible without you. So thank you. We know that making an adoption plan is an act of great love and sacrifice, and it’s hard to imagine anything more beautiful. Please know that we will pass on that deep love to your baby through our gratitude.

With love,
Jeremiah and Susan

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Why We are Choosing to Adopt

Ever since we were married right after college, we dreamed of growing our family. It has been a long journey that led us to discover the beautiful gift of adoption. It wasn’t long after we welcomed our first child – Gabriela – that we knew we wanted to adopt again. Not only did we realize how much we both truly love being parents, but we also had always planned on having at least a few kids. We’ve dreamed of having that “full family,” with a house and car and life in general full of voices and busy-ness and family love. Gabriela has brought so much of that to us already, but it still feels like somebody is missing. We also believe that one of the greatest gifts you can give your child is a brother or sister. Your child joining our family would have from the start the wonderful gift of a big sister, who also has an adoption story.

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About Susan, by Jeremiah

Susan adds a lot of fun to our lives. She is always thinking of new adventures we can go do. We explore a lot of the world and our community because Susan finds interesting, fun things to do. Whether it’s hiking, biking, or visiting a new place, Susan gets us outside and enjoying life. Susan takes such good care of our daughter. She takes care of small things like making sure that Gabriela’s closet is sorted and has clothes that will fit her, and she takes care of important things like the daycare schedule or the doctor’s office visits. Susan came up with a super cool theme and design for Gabriela’s bedroom and it is probably the most fun room in the house!

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About Jeremiah, by Susan

Jeremiah absolutely loves being a dad – and you can tell! He is playful and imaginative and makes us laugh every day with little games that he comes up with. He loves to cuddle up with our daughter and read through a whole stack of books with her, or make her giggle with silly sounds or play peekaboo. Jeremiah cooks for us every day and he has already started having Gabriela “help” with the meals which she loves to do. He really enjoys gardening and has Gabriela digging in the garden with him, learning about all the plants and getting nice and dirty!

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Lifestyle

Since we have a toddler, right now our life is pretty routine. We’ve learned how important it is for Gabriela to have a predictable schedule, and she goes to bed early. On weekends we like to take her on little adventures, like going to the aquarium, the playground, to her cousins’ house, or the zoo. We go to church every Sunday and enjoy just being together as a family. We love to cuddle up in front of the fireplace and read books or have a dance party to silly songs, or practice cooking in the kitchen. We travel as much as we can and Gabriela has already been on a lot of adventures. This summer we will be going to Peru to hike in the Andes mountains!

We can’t wait to be able to do all these things as a family of four. Gabriela has already shown how much she loves other kids, so we’re sure she will love being a big sister. We are looking forward to teaching our kids to play together, love each other as siblings, and be part of the whole family. Kids have so much to teach each other by growing up together and creating that lifelong sibling bond. We’re so excited to bring your baby into our family with a built-in big sister!

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Home & Neighborhood

We live in a suburb in Minnesota. We have a single-family home with a large fenced-in backyard. Our neighborhood is FULL of kids! Every day you can see and hear kids from different families outside playing together. There are many trails right by our house, which we use a lot for hiking, walking, running, and biking. Gabriela always gets to come along in a hiking pack or our jogging stroller/bike trailer. We love living in Minnesota, with its beautiful perfect-weather summers and adventurous winters. Cold and snow just mean more ways to enjoy the outdoors!

When we’re not outside, our house is a great cozy place to play with toys in the kids’ room, chase the dogs around the house, or watch a movie on the projector screen on the wall in the basement. We also often have family over, which means playtime with cousins!

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Our Families & Friends

We live close to Jeremiah’s side of the family, which means we get to see and play with cousins, aunts and uncles, and Grandma. Susan’s family lives in Idaho and Montana, but we still get to see them a few times each year. Gabriela has been on a plane a few times already to go visit family out west. Gabriela has a cousin a few years older than her who was also adopted, so we have many reasons to celebrate adoption in our family!

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Family Traditions

We love doing things outdoors, either in summer or in winter. Every summer we like to go on an overnight kayaking trip down the river in Wisconsin. We can’t wait until our kids are old enough to go as a family! For these next few years, we plan to stick to shorter trips in shallow water and camping with the car nearby.

Winters might be cold and snowy in Minnesota, but we’ve learned that if you have the right gear, then you can have a great time anyway. In her first year of life, Gabriela was able to enjoy being towed on a sled outside in the snow, bundled up and protected from the wind and cold.

One new tradition has been celebrating Gabriela’s adoption day. It is a great time to bring the whole family together and share memories of Gabriela’s birth and remember her adoption story. We’re looking forward to building on that tradition as Gabriela grows older and can understand more. It will be so great to be able to celebrate that day with your baby, too.

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Our Dogs, Bourbon & Buster

We have two medium-sized dogs – Bourbon and Buster – who bring much joy and fun to our family. They have adjusted very well to having a toddler in the house, even though Gabriela likes to chase after them and pull on their ears and tails! Our dogs are like members of the family and they are always snuggled in with us when we are reading books or watching a movie, or running alongside us when we are playing outside. We have a large fenced-in backyard where the dogs have plenty of room to run and play. Their favorite games are tug and chase – which Gabriela thinks is very funny to watch!

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Faith

Our Catholic faith is very important to us. Many of our friends are from our parish or other Catholic organizations that we have been part of over the years. We live our faith by praying as a family, going to church, and using our beliefs to help us make decisions that will bring us closer to God and help us grow as disciples of Jesus. We are excited to share this faith with our children and hope they will find it as meaningful in their lives as we do in ours.

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Racial & Cultural Diversity

Our child is a beautiful Latina baby, and we’re thrilled about the racial and cultural diversity that she brings to our family. We are excited to continue to find ways to learn about and celebrate her cultural heritage and incorporate parts of that culture into our lives and traditions. We have added pictures, music, language, and recipes from her birth family’s country of origin into our daily lives. When she is older, we will visit the country where her birth family is from so she can experience it first-hand, and we are already looking forward to that journey. Gabriela’s cousin, who was also adopted, is of Asian heritage, and we have had a few opportunities to celebrate her cultural and ethnic background as an extended family, especially on holidays.

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Our Relationship with Gabriela's Birth Parents

Gabriela’s birth parents have requested that we share regular pictures and updates with them through text and picture messages, which we are very happy to do. We have let them know that we would be happy to have more contact, including meeting in person, and we hope someday to have that opportunity. We respect her birth parents’ circumstances and appreciate why it’s important for them to maintain their situation as it is. We are thrilled when we do receive messages back from them. In these messages, our child’s birth parents have thanked us many times for loving their child and for sharing updates with them, but of course, we are so thankful to them for entrusting their child to us! We have saved those messages of love and gratitude to share with our daughter to help her understand that her adoption situation was created out of so many people loving her and wanting what is best for her.

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Our Promise to You

Your baby will grow up in a home that is safe, stable, secure, and full of love. He or she will have the gift of a big sister who also became part of our family through adoption. We will celebrate their adoption stories with great joy and honor our children’s birth parents by teaching our children about them, praying for them, and being committed to doing our part to set up a good situation where there can be an ongoing relationship with you.