We understand that a child’s cultural heritage is incredibly important to their identity and should be nurtured and developed in a way that makes them feel proud to be who they are and where they came from. In addition to consistently educating them about the importance and beauty of diversity, we fully intend to encourage any questions they may have about their own heritage.

We also understand that being from a Western European background, we, on our own, may not be able to adequately embody the unique aspects of their culture and heritage. We therefore know how important it will be to provide people in their life who can be social mirrors and give them a sense of belonging and connection to their culture.

We embrace diversity and have always enjoyed learning about and exploring other cultures’ foods, traditions, religions or philosophies etc., and we would love the opportunity to incorporate these into our family, as well, through adoption.

We are both very hard workers, but we like to leave our work at work in order to enjoy the little things in life. We spend a lot of our leisure time outside taking our dogs on walks around the neighborhood, hiking in the woods, playing in the water at the family ranch, or just finding any excuse to be outdoors together with our dogs.

At home we devote a lot of time to our individual hobbies, such as Cory’s woodworking, fly-fishing, and his guitar/banjo/mandolin playing, as well as Dana’s harp playing and horseback riding. Together we enjoy sitting on the couch and watching movies, listening to music, co-cooking, and reading before bed. Overall, we are pretty laid back and take life in stride. We enjoy finding new places to hang out, especially in our new city, including authentic restaurants with good food and great atmosphere, new outdoor spots, and art galleries and museums. We really love living here and want to be an integral part of the community while raising a child.

We believe adoption is a beautiful process that should be shared with a child and never hidden from them or stigmatized. We will always be open and honest with this child about their adoption and encourage questions about their birth parents and how we came to be their parents.

Every child should know how many people in their life truly love them, and we know how much immense love and sacrifice it takes on your part to make the decision to place your baby for adoption. We will always be sure that this child understands this. Added to this, it is important for a child to know their background, culturally and medically, in order to embrace the individual person that they are and will become.

We understand that each adoptee and adoption situation is unique, and we will cater our conversations to respond to the questions and emotions of the child. Adoption is normal in our family already, as Cory was adopted as an infant, and we are so excited to continue this beautiful legacy with the addition of a child into our home and family.

Both of our families are very excited and have been overwhelmingly supportive of our decision to adopt. Our extended families are nearby in Texas, with Dana’s family an hour and a half away and Cory’s 15 minutes away. Since we were married, we have always traded holidays, going to one family for Thanksgiving and the other for Christmas and switching the following year. We enjoy travelling and going to sporting events like baseball games with both families. Cory’s family will gather at our nearby family ranch for many holidays, and everyone will bring food, fishing gear, and other outdoor activity gear.

Cory’s sister, brother-in-law, and our young nephews live 30 minutes away, so we get to see them often. We have a lot of fun with them, looking at bugs, reading books, and working outside at our ranch. Dana’s stepbrother and his girlfriend live in California, and they will come to Texas for some holidays. We had Christmas together with them in a rented downtown Los Angeles condo.

Because our families are so near, childcare will be a breeze! Cory’s mom already takes care of our nephews a couple of days a week and has already volunteered her babysitting services, and his sister wants to cut back on her work hours in order to take care of her kids and the new little one!

Our hometown in Texas is very family-oriented, which is something we noticed when we first moved here. There are playgrounds and parks just about everywhere you turn, a zoo, museums, and little league sports available. Being a college town, there are plenty of sporting events, plays, and concerts to experience.

There are several favorable neighborhoods for raising a family, and our house is nestled in one of those neighborhoods, with a park/playground and elementary school just a few blocks away and several young families around. We are also five minutes from the lake and the local YMCA that has several pools, tennis and basketball courts, and tons of kid activities. While our neighborhood is kid-friendly, Cory's family also has a ranch with riverfront access for a child to explore, skip rocks, and learn about nature.

Our home is a 3-bedroom house with a lot of living space. It is a 1960s house that we recently renovated and updated by removing a few walls to fully open it up. We currently have our bedroom and a guest bedroom, with the third room set up as a music/hobby room… our happy room. Our kitchen is probably where we spend the most time, co-cooking and eating and hanging out together. We have a large, fully-fenced backyard with tons of shade that will be a great place for a child to play (our dogs love it!).

To be honest, we are having the hardest time finding the right words to describe our feelings about the possibility of you considering us to be your child’s parents. A few that come to mind are “honored,” “humbled,” “incredibly grateful,” but these feel quite inadequate and even a bit cliche.

Above all, we hope that you know how much we value you and that we truly understand the incredible love you have for your child. We also want you to know how much we will love this child as well. However, we will never let them forget that because of your love for them first, we were able to shower them with ours. At the very least, we will always be sure to send you letters and pictures as they grow and become their own little person, with their own interests, talents, dreams, and accomplishments. We hope to be able to share with you the pride and joy of seeing someone you love grow and thrive.

We are so ready to become parents and have always wanted adoption to be the primary way in which we grow our family. We believe that Cory’s adoption will create a special bond between us and this child because adoption has always been special to us. We have been very happily married for ten years but have waited until now to start trying to have a family because we knew we wanted the timing to be just right. We spent the first years of our marriage enjoying each other’s company, exploring our passions and hobbies, and even returning to school to further our educations. We are now in a place where we are settled, content, and only just missing that last piece of the puzzle to complete our family.

We have always sought to better ourselves and our society, both choosing professions that allow us to help people. Because Dana has a very kind heart and such a relatable personality, she excels as a paralegal where communication and compassion are keystone principles. A principle near to both of our hearts is conservation, because we feel obligated to protect natural beauty and natural resources, like clean drinking water, for future generations. Cory gets to practice this through his work as an aquatic scientist by helping to preserve freshwater quality in Texas. Our children are the future and should be equipped with every tool available in order to be successful contributors to society.

We envision ourselves as parents who will encourage and cultivate within a child a sense of curiosity, exploration, questioning, searching, and ultimately finding who they want to be in the world. We want to show them the beauty of nature by going on camping trips, hiking through the local parks, or hopping in the canoe on the river that runs through the family ranch. We plan to share our love of music by playing instruments together as a family and encouraging them to explore the arts they may be interested in learning. We hope to travel to new places often and show them the world. Most importantly, we understand that everyone has their own passions and interests, and we will absolutely embrace anything they take interest in. In fact, we often talk of hoping they will end up loving something we’ve never thought about so that we can learn about it with them.

We want you to have the fullest sense of peace in entrusting us to love, nurture, guide, and protect this child. We acknowledge that parenthood is an adventure that is full of love and joy but also that we will experience uncertainty and sometimes pain. With this knowledge, we are so grateful to you for allowing us to welcome your child into our home and to embark on this adventure together.

Sincerely,

Cory & Dana