Christopher and Erica

>

<

From Us to You

Dear Expectant Mother,

We are extremely humbled by and grateful to you. We cannot imagine the possible pain, fear, and uncertainty you might be having with such a heavy decision. Although we will never fully understand, we promise to never let our hearts forget what we know of the difficult path you have traveled before we reached this point of meeting. We believe you are truly offering the greatest gift, your baby. We hope to be the family you choose to receive this gift. We are in awe of your strength and resolve as you walk this path to select a family for your baby.

We have been together as a couple for almost ten years. We were married in 2016 in Erica’s parent’s backyard surrounded by our closest family and friends. The biggest dream we have yet to make come true is having our own family. Adoption has always been something we considered, even in the beginnings of our relationship. Now that we have struggled with infertility, we have thankfully found ourselves in a place where we can move forward with starting our family through adoption.

We want to help give you a picture of the life we will provide your baby. We promise to be the most doting and involved parents. We also live closely to some of our extended family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins) who are excited with anticipation of surrounding your baby with a community of support, love and celebration. Your baby will always have cheerleaders present to witness their achievements as they go through life, whether it be a preschool graduation, swimming across the pool for the first time or singing in their school choir.

Our home is a perfect size for a family of three. We fell in love with this home for a few reasons including the fenced-in backyard with a playhouse, garden, hammock, and fire pit for roasting s’mores. We love to entertain and have our family and friends over frequently. The playroom and backyard are currently most loved by our nieces and nephews but we know your baby would quickly be involved in their playtime and enjoy all the space and toys right alongside these built-in best friends. Your baby will have a bedroom right next to ours. We plan to set this room up as a calm, soothing and neutral space that will allow us to prepare for and settle down from the day together. A rocking chair for snuggles and a shelf full of books for reading together will be the main attractions in their room.

Along with our family and friends, your baby will also have the companionship of our dogs, Pebbles and BamBam. Pebbles is Goldendoodle (30lbs) who is six and BamBam is Bernadoodle puppy (grow to 30lbs) born in April 2022. Both are sweet and loving dogs who quickly come to anyone’s side for cuddles and kisses. Both especially love playing alongside children, and always get excited when they throw the ball to fetch or play with their toys. We enjoy taking them on daily walks in the evenings. We look forward to adding your baby in a stroller with these daily adventures around the neighborhood.

We would raise your baby in a home filled with laughter and joy. In the summer, we would enjoy our community pool for swim lessons and eventually join the swim team. We will explore all the local parks. We will have pizza, popcorn, and movie nights weekly where we all cuddle on the couch for the newest family flick. We cannot wait to plan vacations to the beach and Disney World.

We know we are designed for parenthood, and we appreciate your thoughtful and deliberate decision to choose the best family for your baby. Please know we are grateful to you and hope to meet you soon!

Love,
Erica and Christopher

>

<

Why We are Choosing to Adopt

Adoption has always been part of our plan to complete our family. We are aware of the necessity of a dedicated support system from our own upbringings and have always felt a desire to play a supportive role in other children’s lives by bringing them into our family. After getting married in 2016, we expected to have many babies running around and quickly create the large family we had dreamed of together. We were devastated when we learned our family was not going to come together as quickly as we had anticipated. After undergoing multiple failed fertility treatments, we decided it was best to focus our efforts and finances on adoption. During all these years of struggling with infertility we never gave up hope of making our family dreams come true as we knew family was truly where we wanted to focus our time and energy.

>

<

About Christopher

Christopher shows his love primarily through acts of service, and he serves daily to demonstrate his love for family. In our home, we share in all chores 50/50 and he does the grocery shopping, takes the trash out, mows the law, and is always willing to run an errand for our household. He is the first to volunteer to pick up a loved one from the airport or find a way to make someone else’s day easier through service.

Christopher will be an excellent father, who will be an active, loving partner in raising a child. He is kind, thoughtful and selfless. He is quick to laugh, play and has a fun, sarcastic sense of humor. He is an analytical person and extremely intelligent. He will offer facts on so many different topics that I am frequently in awe of his knowledge base. I could not have picked a better partner to be the father to a child, he is dedicated, responsible and caring. I am overwhelmed with emotions thinking about all he will teach to a child in our family one day.

>

<

About Erica

In my mind Erica is the most amazing woman in the world. She has always been the most loving and caring person. I have never met someone with so many close, lifelong friends, and not just social media friends, but loyal friends who support, love, and engage. This is accomplished through her efforts to reach out, engage, and foster those relationships. She is the oldest sibling of five, which has added to her experience in hard work, management, patience, baby rearing, and sharing.

She brings a strength and foundation to our relationship that balances me and provides a bond that is eternal. She brings an aura of love and openness that would provide happiness and security to any child. Her wisdom is vast and meaningful. This provides a safe home and a bright future. Erica is the total package of brains, beauty, and kindness. Within her embrace a child will grow up with the tools and support to be the strongest, smartest, and best human.

>

<

How We Met

We met in 2013 on match.com. Our first date was at Starbucks, and we were there entirely too long for just a cup of coffee. We both were at a place in life where a life partner, engagement, marriage and children were our priorities. We felt at ease and comfortable with each other in the conversations and activities that followed in our dating. Erica was most attracted to Christopher’s honest and direct communication. Christopher was attracted most to Erica’s eyes and “can do” attitude. We fell in love quickly with Christopher being the first to say the words “I love you” less than six months after meeting. Neither of us had believed in soulmates prior to meeting each other and now we know that we are each other’s soulmates. Throughout our relationship together we have amplified our commonalities, as well as learned how to complement our differences. We choose each other first every day and vowed to continue to fill our home with respect, joy, and love.

>

<

How a Child will Enrich our Lives

Your baby will bring a sense of completion and peace to our home. We have dreamed of all the things we would want to do with a child as part of our family. We know that adding a baby would allow us to participate in activities we have longed to have a part in. For example, we both love being in the water and swimming. We would look forward to taking a baby swim course at the local rec center and later joining a swim team once old enough to participate at our community pool. We know having a child will allow us to broaden our place in the community. We dream of the simple moments we experience each day just being sweeter since we will have a baby to experience it all through their eyes. Things like taking walks as a family in the evenings before dinner will just carry more joy as our family will feel complete.

>

<

Our Home

We live in a diverse and established neighborhood which is in a suburb of Virginia. Erica is a little biased as she grew up in this same zip code, but we think it is the perfect place to raise a family and the main reason we bought our home. Our neighborhood has an active community and hosts a variety of events throughout the year, a trunk-or-treat at Halloween, an egg hunt in the Spring, and quarterly neighborhood trash clean ups in the park. There is also an involved community pool with a swim team within walking distance. There are lots of young families throughout our neighborhood, and we are excited about our local elementary school. It has a diverse population of students and involved, caring staff, with one of our friends as a first-grade teacher there.

Our home has four bedrooms and two bathrooms with a basement already setup with a playroom for our nieces and nephews to play and with the hopes of your baby as well. We spend most nice days in the backyard with our dogs, Pebbles and BamBam and any loved ones or friends that visit. Your baby’s bedroom would be right next to our bedroom. We plan to decorate in a gender-neutral decor. We will set it up with a crib, dresser and rocking chair. We have loved the process of decorating the other parts of our home over the years. This nursery will be our final space to fill with the same inviting, calming atmosphere we have curated throughout our home.

>

<

Our Sweet Pups

We are lucky to have two dogs, a beautiful Goldendoodle named Pebbles and a Bernadoodle named BamBam. Both are fluffy pups and are the most kind, gentle and well-behaved dogs. Pebbles is six years old and BamBam is a puppy, born in April 2022. They love children and other animals (even cats!). They are the best greeters when we come home and make us feel so happy and loved. They love “fetching” the ball in our backyard but find it more fun to not bring it back. They love chew toys to play tug of war with or run after in the house. We look forward to your child playing and interacting with Pebbles and BamBam each day. They often wait patiently for our niece and nephew to wake up and begin playing when they are at our home for sleepovers. We know Pebbles and BamBam will be your child’s loving companions.

>

<

Our Family and Friends

We are close with our family and friends and are thankful to have a supportive community. We know the power of having a village to surround us as we experience changes in our lives and have settled in a place where our proximity allows us to take part in the day-to-day lives of those that matter to us. Erica’s parents live just a 10-minute walk through the park. We also have a sister and brother-in-law who are just three miles away. They have three children under five and are who we spend most of our time loving on. They all are eager to have a cousin to join them in their endless hours of play.

We look forward to including your baby into our already established community, from the bounce house birthday parties of friend’s children to cousins running around our backyard each weekend, we know your child will be included. We are already immersed in baby/kid discussions with our friends and are excited to finally take part personally instead of just listening to other children’s achievements and milestones. We know your baby would be part of our special community and is truly a long-awaited arrival not just for us, but for all of our loved ones as well.

>

<

Family Traditions

We are both excited to share our traditions with your baby and establish new ones with your child being a new addition and focus to our little family. When we first got married, we discussed how important traditions are to us and how we treasure creating memories together through them.

One of our favorites is going to a tree farm to cut our Christmas tree each year. We typically tag a tree in October and then return the weekend after Thanksgiving to cut it down. Christmas is always a magical season in our home, we begin decorating once the tree is home and spend a day adding decor around the home for the holiday. On Christmas Day, we spend time with extended family to exchange presents and have a meal together.

For New Year’s Eve, we typically spend it with Erica’s family. We have continued a tradition from her late-Grandma to cheer and drink sparkling cider out of vintage glass shoes at midnight. As we have added more members to the extended family each one gets their own vintage glass that Erica’s mom searches for at consignment shops. We believe it is pivotal to celebrate life and love adding new traditions that help us remember the importance of celebrating. We look forward to celebrating all these holidays and more along with your baby.

>

<

Vacations and Leisure Time

We prioritize and enjoy our leisure time in the evenings, on the weekends and on vacation. We take one vacation to the beach in the summer with Erica’s family. This includes her parents and siblings and their families. It is a highlight of our summer as it is a nonstop week of fun and together time. We make plans to get away for a long weekend to the mountains or explore a nearby city. We also plan a vacation each year with just us as a couple. This year we escaped to the beach in the winter. We both feel so grounded by the ocean, so it is a really rejuvenating place for us to visit.

Some of our favorite activities on evenings and weekends are being outside on a walk or hike, swimming at our community pool, reading and watching a good movie or TV show together. We believe it is important to rest and recharge, especially in this fast-paced world. We know that including your child will only enrich the memories we create during our leisure time and travel.

>

<

Our Lifestyle

We both currently work full-time and are fortunate to work from home. We each have our own office space so we can focus while still being present in our household. We split household chores and errands 50/50 where Erica manages keeping the house organized and clean and Christopher does our grocery shopping, and manages home care and maintenance. Having been together for almost a decade we have established patterns that can easily accommodate and stretch for your baby.

We love our home and enjoy hosting. We typically have our extended family over weekly for dinner and gather with friends on the weekend. On evenings when we’re not hosting, we enjoy a good bingeable show and Christopher cooks us a meal and Erica contributes by doing the dishes.

We love to plan trips and look forward to having your baby in our adventures. Our favorite place is the beach, and we love a good road trip. We travel every few months to Pennsylvania for a weekend visit to Christopher’s extended family.

We cannot wait to capture all your baby’s first in our day-to-day activities.

>

<

Our Careers

We both have worked hard our entire adult lives. We each enjoy what we do professionally and have successful careers as a result. Erica works as a director of human resources and finance for a healthcare technology company, she loves helping young companies navigate the intricacies of human resources and thrives at helping companies grow. Christopher works in the healthcare industry as a project manager, he enjoys solving problems and creating efficiencies at his job. We have always enjoyed working and providing for ourselves and now each other. Erica does plan to take an extended leave once your baby is born to be part of those first months with undivided attention as she feels her true calling is in motherhood. She then plans to reduce her hours to part-time and Christopher will continue to work full time.

>

<

Racial and Cultural Diversity

We welcome all races and cultures into our family. We promise to prioritize our knowledge and understanding of your baby’s race and culture to embrace their background. We understand the significant role culture and race plays in a child’s life and will seek all opportunities to support and encourage their learning and immersion. We are both learners by nature and promise to commit ourselves to learning on our own about your child’s cultural and racial diversity so we can best meet their needs. We have a diverse group of friends and family so your child will grow up with role models that look like them and that we can learn from and ask questions of them. We will prioritize your baby’s knowledge of their culture and race to further celebrate and embrace all things that make them unique and special.

>

<

The Kind of Parents We will Be

We will be your child’s biggest cheerleader. We will unconditionally support your child’s hopes and dreams. We know there will be a time and a place for discipline with expectations and redirecting. We will be aware of your child’s age and development to be appropriate with our teaching of boundaries and respect. Your child will always feel loved, even when discipline is required. We believe in teaching through example and know they will learn respect by being treated with respect. We hope to always instill in them that no matter what they do and say, we will never stop loving them. We promise to be their trusted and safe space to make mistakes and learn as we go through life together.

>

<

What We will Teach your Child

Your baby will learn first that family is everything and life is meant to be enjoyed. We will teach your baby to celebrate all the wins in life. Your baby will feel supported to take risks and learn from them with us by their side. We will teach your baby that learning is a lifelong journey to feed their curious soul. Christopher will teach your baby how to build Legos, maintain the car and do projects around the home. Erica will teach your baby how to paint with watercolors, read and work in the garden.

>

<

What We will tell Your Child about You

Your baby will know how courageous, loving, and selfless you are. They will know you are strong and gave the greatest gift anyone could give. Your child will be taught by us to respect and honor you and the choices you are making. We will convey that you put your child first and will encourage them to remember and cherish you for making that decision. We believe that a child is best raised with a supportive community and are willing to foster an open relationship with you for your child to have your love as part of their community. We will be completely open with your child and share stories of you and your family.

>

<

Our Promise to You

We promise to always be a safe, supportive, and loving haven for your baby. We will give your baby unconditional love. We know how precious life is, we recognize it is a gift to be surrounded by loved ones and that is a gift we will give your baby each day. We look forward to the little joys of life, from catching a sunset together to treating your baby to little surprises. We will cherish each moment with your baby, we will always put their needs first. We will celebrate your baby’s successes, as well as be a soft landing for failures. We recognize your heartbreak may be our joy and we promise to honor and respect you. Your baby will never question if they are loved, safe or supported.