Choose A Family : Parent Profile

Diane and Charles

Hello, we are Charles and Diane. We don’t need to tell you that adoption is a difficult choice. We sincerely admire your courageous act of love to place your baby into the waiting arms of an adoptive family who can offer a secure and loving home, in a place where she or he will have the opportunity to grow and flourish. Without you we would not be able to grow as a family. We promise to repay your selfless gift by loving your child and by giving him or her the very best life that we can. She, or he, will always be aware that you gave the greatest expression of love by offering an opportunity to experience a full and happy life.

We hope that by telling you about how we grew up, met, and spend our life together, we can help you decide if our home is the right place for your child to live and grow.

Charles & Diane

About Us
We met thirteen years ago while Diane was on vacation from England visiting with her mother, step father, and brother, who at that time lived in Austin, Texas. During that visit, Diane’s family took a trip to the coast, where Charles was stationed at Naval flight training school. It happened that Charles was attending a party at the hotel at which Diane and her family were staying. While Charles waited for his ride home, we met, talked, and arranged to get together the following day. That first date was followed by several more before Diane flew home to England.

We stayed in touch through letters, many phone calls, and several flights to England and the USA over the next year. At one point we knew our relationship was permanent and decided to marry. And so in 1996 we eloped. A few years later, after we bought our first house and were settled, we finally announced that our wedding was going to take place. We planned it to occur on the exact date of our actual marriage from three years earlier. All of our family and close friends from two countries flew in to be with us. It was a formal military wedding, with Charles’ squadron mates performing the traditional sword arch as we passed from the chapel, and everyone seemed to have a great time at the reception. That gathering of family and friends remains one of our fondest memories.

There were a few personal goals we wanted to accomplish, so we put off starting a family for several years. Charles knew he would be deploying to foreign countries many times in his career, and did not want to be away from his children as they were growing up. Diane was starting her career as a Project Manager and pursuing higher education at the same time. Once we reached our personal goals we discovered that we were unable to have our own biological children and so we decided to adopt.

Our relationship is strong, and it’s been tested through military deployments, careers, and building our house. They have brought us closer and made our relationship stronger. We have mutual respect, love, and trust. Most importantly, we communicate. It’s our foundation. For over twelve years, we have loved each other, supported each other, and most importantly, when times were difficult, we talked with each other.

About Charles - by Diane
Charles is a Naval Aviator in the United States Marine Corps, holding the officer rank of Major. He has been on active duty for fifteen years, and at twenty years will retire with a pension.

His sister and her family, as well as his parents, live in Oklahoma. Charles was born and raised there, moving after college when he joined the service.

Charles is a provider and a protector. He strives to ensure that as a family we have everything we need. He tells me often that he loves me and appreciates all that I do for him. I feel like our relationship has the same passion as it did on the day we married.

He is extremely smart, always striving to learn new things, and he loves to share his wealth of knowledge. He has a master’s degree in modeling & simulation. Charles is a problem solver; he sets goals and always achieves them. Telling him that something cannot be done is the surest way to see him accomplish the job. It makes him determined to prove it otherwise. He is patient, kind, and gentle and has a great sense of humor.

To relax, he’ll often go to work in his wood shop, go for a run, read a book, or play a computer game. He has an ear for music and can play the piano, guitar, trumpet, and harmonica.

He is my hero, and I am without doubt that he will be a wonderful nurturer, teacher, and father.

About Diane - by Charles
Diane has one biological brother, five adopted sisters, and five step brothers and sisters. She was born and raised in England, moving to the States twelve years ago when we were married. She is a Senior Project Manager with a large bank.

I never grow tired of her endearing English accent, and her British expressions never cease to amuse me. She is funny, down to earth, and able to socialize with most people. She has a generous nature and puts other people’s interests before her own. She is inquisitive about the world and enjoys being outdoors. She has more patience than most of the people I know. One of the characteristics I admire about my wife is the way she can organize a tough job. She’ll dive right in knowing that it won’t be easy, and won’t be over quickly. What makes her able to do that is her talent of seeing the abilities in other people and working with them to get hard jobs done.

I wouldn’t label her a homemaker, because that paints a pretty limited image of everything she does. She has the luxury of working part time and being able to do her job from our home office. She has created a warm, inviting, and comfortable home. She likes to experiment making new things in the kitchen, and since she has a natural flair for cooking, I usually look forward to that. Around the house, Diane is pretty handy; she doesn’t balk at do-it-yourself projects so we’re mostly a team effort when home repairs are needed. For hobbies she likes to work on interior design and garden projects, do yoga, listen to music, and sew.

She’s the most important person in my life and the best friend I have. I love her for her selfless and outgoing nature, boundless enthusiasm for life, and genuine kindness. I can’t imagine a woman more perfectly suited to be a mother.

Spending Time Together
We enjoy spending quality time together during weekends working on projects around our home and in our garden, enjoying a home cooked meal, or curling up on the sofa together watching movies.

On about one weekend out of the month we’ll visit the beach or go hiking with the dogs, or spend the day roaming around San Diego at one of the museums or cultural centers.

We like to travel. On our own before we met, we’d seen a good deal of the world, and continued traveling abroad afterwards. Once we have children, and they are old enough, we plan to continue those trips with them, visiting family and friends around the world. Depending on where we go when traveling, we scuba dive, snow ski, and sometimes just hang out with relatives who live there.

Our Home and Neighborhood
We’re surely biased, but we think we live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. The area is a rural community with neighboring houses on a couple of acres each. The neighbors are close enough to look out for each other, but far enough away for privacy. The climate is mild year round; the town in which we live is situated between the ocean about a dozen miles to the west, and a mountain range the same distance to the east. Children of all ages play in the neighborhood, and the local schools are safe and have received high ratings.

Our garden looks out to hills and mountains, and we are surrounded by orange and avocado groves. It takes about 30 minutes to drive to the beach and about 45 minutes to get to downtown San Diego. It means good access to the metropolis without being immersed in it all the time.

The yard has plenty of room for children to play and explore. There’s a fenced pool and long summers in which to use it. Each weekend we’re outside doing landscaping; our current project is putting in trees down the tiers of a large slope. Charles has already picked out the area where he’ll build a play center, and is drafting the design for it, complete with slides, swings, ropes, and ladders.

Because we built our home and it was our design and turned out to be exactly what we wanted, we think we’ll be here for a long time. Since getting married, we had planned to do something like this, but it took sacrifice and risk. The one thing that it is missing is the pitter patter of tiny feet running around.

Our Friends and Family
Diane has five adopted sisters; her mother and stepfather adopted many of the girls that they cared for as foster parents. As they live ten minutes from our home, we see them or talk with them nearly every day. Diane’s brother, his wife, three young sons, and one newly arrived daughter live about an hour to the south. We see them at weekends and family get-togethers and talk on the phone regularly. Often we babysit the children either at our home or as part of a trip. We are a close family that supports and looks out for each other. We spend time together frequently and on every holiday. Diane’s family and friends in England visit regularly, and every few years we get the chance to travel to England to see them as well.

Charles’ sister is married and has two children. He is close to his father and stepmother and talks with them once a week. They travel to California from the US Midwest to stay with us for a couple of weeks during the summers. Charles’ best friends from college visit us every few years with their families, and he stays in contact with them monthly.

Two long-time members of our family are Major and Hermes, a couple of Chocolate Labradors that have been with us almost as long as we have been married. They both are clowns and an endless source of entertainment. Diane’s brother’s kids love to play with them. They are great with children, affectionate, gentle, and (most importantly it would seem) very tolerant of having their ears pulled.

What We Can Offer a Child
Our child will always be loved; most importantly, she or he will know it. We’re pretty confident saying that, because it’s the kind of environment we both were raised in, and that kind of thing carries over naturally from generation to generation.

There is warmth, laughter, and open communication in our family now, and that won’t change with the addition of a child. We offer the opportunity for an excellent academic education, a childhood in a clean and comfortable home, plenty of outdoor play time, and much social interaction with children his or her age.

The activities we do now aren’t likely to stop with a child’s arrival. We’re looking forward to sharing our trips to the beach, to the mountains, and through forest hiking trails. It will be a great pleasure to take a child to all the places that have filled us with wonder. Charles is looking forward to reading the bedtime stories he heard as a child from his own parents, and Diane is eager to start showing a child how to garden and care for animals.

We want our child to experience life through travel and exploration. We’ll continue to visit our family and friends across the United States, England, Europe, and Australia. Both of us have come to learn the importance of expanding one’s horizons through immersion in other cultures, and we’ll pass along that lesson to our children.

We would teach our child the value of life, to be respectful of it, and to protect it. She or he will learn by example to care for the environment, to have generosity for people less fortunate than themselves, and to be kind. Our child will know that one’s word is very important to keep, and that integrity and compassion are important among personal qualities. What he or she chooses to do with life will be her or his choice alone, but we’ll give our child the invaluable tools of self-confidence and self-reliance to be able to do it well.

Above all, our child will understand what it means to be loved.

Thank you for taking the time to get to know us. If you would like to find out more about us, or talk to us personally, please call our adoption advisors at the AdoptHelp toll free number anytime at 1-800-637-7999.

Charles & Diane

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