Dear Birth Parent(s),

Hi, we are Allison and Rainer and we are excited about becoming parents to a wonderful child through adoption. It is our deepest wish to become parents. We believe that a child would benefit from the abundance of unconditional love, encouragement and nurturing that we have to offer. We invite you to read more about us and hope that you find us to be just the kind of parents you are looking for.

We greatly respect you and the choices that you are making for your child and we promise to communicate to your child our admiration of you. We will never hide the fact that he or she is adopted. Your child will have two days to celebrate a year, a birthday and an adoption day! Your child will have a special space all it's own just for storing photographs and any other mementos from you. We are also open to talking or even meeting you before placement if at all possible. We will do everything in our power to make sure your child has a loving and caring upbringing and will grow up to be a person of whom you can be proud. We welcome the opportunity of providing you with pictures and reports of your child as he or she grows up and will always respect your wish and your child's to remain in contact with one another, if that is your desire.

We are strong believers in creating families by choice. We both have wonderful families that are very supportive of our plans to adopt and that really believe we will be good parents. We also have friends that we feel just as strongly about as we do our blood relatives and they have the same commitment to us and our plans to adopt as our families do. In this circle of friends there are several adopted grown ups and also parents with newly adopted children. We are very excited about adopting a child from the United States, carrying on some American traditions and creating new ones that include the child.

Our Plans: We will spend most of the year in Germany and Allison will be a stay-at-home mom as she works part-time on a flexible schedule from our home office. Rainer works freelance and has a very flexible schedule- therefore he will have plenty of time for the child. One great gift we have is free-time. This is a precious resource that we are yearning to share with a child. When the child arrives we will get regular help from a professional midwife. In Germany this is paid for by all health insurance companies. Over time we would like to participate in classes for babies and children. Swimming for babies and musical education are two examples. We are looking forward to spending typical snowy Christmases in Germany with Rainer's family at their house which is very close to us in the suburbs. The house, where we have our own room, is at the edge of a protected forest. We will spend our summers at the farm in Spain where both of our families will come to visit. We plan on many trips to the beaches, to the wonderful mountain rivers and the swimming holes which are Allison's favorites. Trips to our neighbors' farm to see the baby goats is also a favorite. Of course we will also travel to the United States to visit Allison's family in Florida, where we love picking and eating oranges and tangerines.

We have just bought a print of "The City Mouse and The Country Mouse" for the nursery. We felt this a great representation of our lives and the future life of the child. We feel we can really offer the best of both worlds.

Rainer's sister and her husband will be godparents to the child. Their vacation home in Sweden is a wonderful place to enjoy nature. They have no children of their own so the child is sure to get plenty of love and attention. They have so much to offer a child and are very excited about being godparents. We both speak English, German, and Spanish and the child will have the opportunity to learn all of these languages. We believe that this will give the child the possibility of studying at Universities in different countries in Europe and we will be happy to support and encourage the child in his or her decisions for higher education. University education is government funded in Europe so that everyone has the chance to study.

Our Hopes: We want you to know that our hope for your child is that he or she becomes a stable, self-confident and happy individual that can enjoy all that life has to offer. We know that you want to find the best home for your baby and we promise that it will grow up in a loving, and nurturing environment, with friends and family and an excellent education. Thank you for considering us as a family for your child and for taking the time to read about us. We are so hoping that you might choose us and make an exceptional gift of trust. It is a leap of faith. We hope that your pregnancy and delivery will be as easy as it possibly can be.

Rainer & Allison