Dear Birth Parent(s),

We know you are faced with a very challenging decision about your baby's future, and that you are about to do an important and selfless thing. We want you to know how much we would love to adopt another child, and we want you to feel confident that your child would be raised in a loving home.

Our names are David and Stephanie. We met sixteen years ago while working as software engineers in New Jersey. A mutual friend realized we were meant to be together and worked ceaselessly behind the scenes until we finally had our first date! We started dating just before Stephanie left to attend law school in Chicago. After years of long-distance dating, we were married six years ago in the Bahamas. Although it feels like we were just married yesterday, we are definitely an "old, married couple" who know each other so well! We have a loving, stable relationship that was made even stronger when we adopted our daughter Olivia almost four years ago.

We are both very active people who love outdoor activities. We like to jog, hike, and go on walks with our daughter and two dogs. We are both avid readers and believe education is very important. We plan to make sure that your child receives a college education and that he or she knows they can do anything they set their mind to in life.

When we adopted Olivia, David stopped working and became a stay-at-home dad for the first eight months of her life. Because David started missing his business life, and Stephanie longed to spend more time with Olivia, Stephanie left her career as a law professor three years ago to become a stay-at-home mom. We are very fortunate that Stephanie can remain a stay-at-home parent for our family. It has allowed us to fully support our daughter's involvement in the many activities and educational opportunities she enjoys. We plan to provide your child with those same opportunities.

As parents, we believe it is essential to provide children with a loving, supportive environment. Both our families and our community have helped in creating that environment. We live in a great town known for being a great place to raise a family. Although our parents do not live in the same state as we do, they keep in close touch with our daughter through telephone calls, cards, visits and photos. They are ecstatic over the opportunity you are giving them to become grandparents again!

We openly discuss the fact that our daughter is adopted, and have read several children's books about adoption to her. We anticipate that she will soon begin asking questions about what "adoption" means, and when she does, we will do our best to explain it at a level she can understand. There are several great books written to help adoptive parents discuss adoption with young children, and we plan to take advantage of that expert advice! Going through the adoption process now gives us another opportunity to discuss the concept with our daughter. She already knows that we really want a baby, and that we are doing our best to bring a new baby into our family. Quite a few of our neighbors and women in our playgroup are pregnant right now, so our daughter will experience the difference between growing a family through having babies and growing a family through adopting a baby. More than anything else, we will make it very clear to our daughter how much we love her, and that we couldn't love her any more if she was grown in Mommy's tummy. And we will tell her what an act of love it was for her birthmother to help make her a part of our family.

We live in a roomy, comfortable house with a huge backyard and a fenced pool. We are fortunate enough to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle and we can offer a child a warm, loving home with financial security.

We are very excited about becoming parents again, and are so grateful to you for this opportunity. Our gratitude will be conveyed to your child when we discuss the difficult, loving decision you made for him or her. We look forward to letting you see that we have kept our promise to provide a good life for your child through photos and letters.

Thank you for spending this time getting to know a little bit about us! More than anything else, we want you to know how much we are looking forward to sharing our lives with another child we can love and nurture.

Our warmest regards,

David & Stephanie