Waiting Families
Evelyn and Christian
Dear Birth Mother,
Thank you for making the choice to offer your baby the gift of life through choosing adoption. We can’t imagine what a difficult that decision that is for you but we respect you for doing so.
Thank you also for taking the time to learn more about us and for considering us to be parents of your child. Whether your decision is to entrust us to raise your child or not, we hope that this decision will bring you peace in knowing that he or she is going to a loving home.
My husband and I moved to Virginia in 2005 from Northern California where we met. After getting married, knowing that we wanted to start a family, we took some career opportunities here knowing that it was going to be a much better environment in which to raise a family. Both of us have lived on the east coast and have friends and family from Florida to Maine; my husband grew up in Florida and I lived in Washington, DC for a year before going to school in South Carolina. Being close to friends and family has afforded us the opportunity to renew relationships and see friends and family regularly. Aside from relationships, we knew that we’d like the pace of life here and came here committed to one of us staying home to raise our children (something that would have been very difficult in California).
Since moving here, we have developed a strong support group through our work relationships, our neighbors, and our church. We realized how important this was to raising a family when we had the first of our two daughters, Elizabeth, in December of 2007. The morning after she was born, we were told that she had Down syndrome. Scared, unprepared and not knowing what that meant, friends of ours came to the hospital to give us support and encouragement as we learned more about what that meant for us. Through them, we came to realize that we had been blessed with a perfectly healthy little girl who has an extra chromosome. And despite all the “bad” things that can be associated with Down syndrome, Elizabeth has had none of the issues that children with Down syndrome have a greater risk of having. In hindsight, the support of our friends was invaluable and we couldn’t imagine going through this experience without them.
In June of 2009, we had our second daughter, Anna. We knew that we wanted to have more than one child and seeing her grow and the bond that is forming at such a young age between sisters has confirmed that these two girls are going to be pals for life. At the same time, we know in our hearts that we have more love to give and these girls do too and that is why we are looking to adopt to add to our family.
After having Elizabeth, I stayed home and my husband continued to work…for a couple of months. Several months after being at home, an opportunity was presented to me, and after much prayerful consideration, we decided it was in the best interest of our family for me to return to work and my husband to stay home and raise our daughters. This has proven to be a good choice but we always leave the door open to what is best for our family.
We live in a nice, older neighborhood with people of all ages from young families like us to retired couples and everyone in between.
Thank you again for thoughtfully considering us to be the parents of your child.
Eternally grateful,
Evelyn and Christian