Brenna and Mike

With the gift of adoption comes many promises to you and your child. We wish to support you through this process and raise your child in our loving arms. The adoption of our son Tilghman has changed our lives is so many wonderful ways. His growth, education and happiness are our main focus and we now want him to know the joy of having a brother or sister! We plan to document, capture, and preserve each memory for all of us to enjoy. We are humbled by your consideration of adoption for your child.

How We'll Address Cultural Diversity
Children, even infants, recognize differences. This recognition is innocent, nonjudgmental and curious in nature. We have been overjoyed by the enthusiastic welcome we have received from our local community and constantly look to expand both our own and our son’s point of view through travel and exploration of other cultures. We have been given numerous storybooks to engage our children early on in open discussions about differences. By actively learning, and making use of different venues, we hope to raise our children with strong self-esteem, firm roots in their identities, and the ability to celebrate cultural differences.

Animals are Important in our Lives
Pets can't talk but they can communicate. They have needs, hopes, and challenges. Pets also give back to us in ways that we don't even notice. Their many gifts to us sometimes go unnoticed. We feel so blessed to have our pets in our lives. Their presence provides a huge source of comfort and a well of love that can never run dry. Being a veterinarian, Brenna loves animals and is teaching Tilghman to care for and love them as well! Tigger the cat and Dellford the dog are members of our family!!

Our House and Neighborhood
Our home is a lovely Spanish style house in Texas! It features a striking double sided fireplace where we hang our stockings at Christmas time. Sunlight pours in our large windows, out of which, our dog and cat watch squirrels and cardinals in our spacious yard. In this yard, we have more than enough room to build a swing set where our children can play. We also have a vegetable garden to grow fresh fruit and vegetables when the weather cooperates. Our big open kitchen allows us to cook these veggies, fold laundry, and sing silly songs with our son all simultaneously. Lots of space, with our four bedrooms, allows us to imagine the little voices that will one day bounce off our brightly colored walls. We dream of listening to our son play with his future sibling some day soon.

Our quiet subdivision has a partially wooded park with swings, picnic tables and mini-rock climbing walls. On our first evening in this neighborhood, we noticed a group of children drawing on the sidewalks with colorful chalk and we knew we were here to stay.

Our Extended Families
Mike’s family includes his parents Barb and Dave, his sister Mary and her husband Geoff. Brenna has two brothers one older and one younger (Ryan and Gregory). Her parents figure prominently in our life. They are Bob and Jayne. Mike and Brenna both are proud of their parents' long, happy relationships and hold them as role models. Everybody in our family adores Tilghman!

Dear Birthmother,
Thank you doesn’t seem to be nearly enough. We so appreciate your consideration of adoption. To help you make your decision, we would like to show you our hearts.

My husband and I met as teenagers in our first year of university. Mike approached me outside of our Latin class and it wasn’t love at first sight. His pick up line was lame but I ate lunch with him anyway. Neither of us have ever used the Latin that we learned but we’ve been together ever since. Our courtship was lengthy with long distances between us at times. We were married on the nine year anniversary of our first date on the Island of Grand Cayman with our friends and family surrounding us.

These same friends and family are supporting us again as we venture into the adoption process (for a second time). They feel strongly that we were always meant to be parents and whole-heartedly accepted our son Tilghman whom we adopted last year. As parents, we are fun-loving, gentle, nurturing and structured. We both had wonderful childhoods and still enjoy close relationships with our parents and role models.

In our ever-growing desire to be parents, we purchased a beautiful home, in a quiet suburb, in a wonderful school district. Our home was too quiet until we adopted our son in April 2010. His adoption story is full of light and love and we tell him everyday how much his birthmother loves him. As energetic as our little guy is, we find ourselves with space and love enough to expand our family.

Currently, our family also includes our ten year old terrier Dellford and our geriatric rescue cat named Tigger. Brenna’s training as a veterinarian and Mike’s work in the veterinary physiology department ensures that there will always be animals around. Although it is important to love your work, it can also be obvious to a couple that love of career is not enough. Brenna became a stay-at-home mom soon after our son was born.

The love of a family is something that we already possess. Now, we are just waiting for our next child to find us through his/her birth mother. So often it is said that you can’t understand what it means to be a parent until the child is placed in your arms. We are overwhelmed with the gift of having someone else place their child in our arms.

We promise to look into the face of your child with all the love, patience, and understanding that any child deserves. We pledge to capture every moment and hold these memories to share with you.

We hope to learn about you so that your child may also come to know you as we discuss what it means to be adopted. We wish to navigate this road ahead together and thank you again for considering adoption.

Warm wishes,

Brenna and Mike

If you have an questions for us, or would like to talk to us about adopting your child, please contact an AdoptHelp advisor by Calling 1-800-637-7999 or clicking the "Contact Us" button below.

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