Choose A Family : Parent Profile
Laura and Chris
Thank you for taking the time to read our letter. We hope it gives you a sense of who we are, what our day to day lives are like and most importantly what we have to offer the baby you are carrying. We cannot begin to know what this is like for you. All we can say is that we think you are incredibly brave and must love and want the best for your child very much. If we are so blessed as to have you choose us to parent, we will support you in whatever ways we can and we will honor your decision by giving your child a lifetime of unconditional love.
Please know that we will give your child a loving home and two parents who are emotionally and financially stable and able to give plenty of understanding, nurturing, education and fun and a wonderful two year old brother, Nick. We will make sure that your child both knows that he or she is loved by us and knows the tremendous love and commitment that led you to choose adoption so that they can have the best life possible.
About Us
We think we had the world’s most inefficiently arranged marriage. Our mothers (one in Boston and one in England) had been great friends for more than 15 years when they finally introduced us. We already knew and loved our future in-laws, we just didn’t know that one day they would be family as well as friends. When our paths finally crossed, we very quickly knew that we just had to be together. We had both waited quite long enough to recognise the right one when they eventually came along and we weren’t going to let little things like an ocean and 6,000 miles get in the way. Within a year, we were married, Laura had left London and we had settled together in San Francisco. Sometimes it has been challenging for us both. Laura still phones up from the supermarket because she can’t remember the American word for chickpeas (it’s garbanzo beans) but we have never looked back.
We love each other deeply and, while we certainly aren’t perfect, we always work things through. What really helps are shared values, a similar sense of humour (we laugh a lot!), the deep sense of commitment to one another and willingness to compromise when we have different points of view.
What Laura says about Chris
What initially attracted me to Chris were his energy, curiosity and confidence. He loves life and is determined to make the most of it and his enthusiasm rubs off on everyone around him. I still love those things about Chris but now I know he is also clever, funny, loving and sensitive and it’s this combination that makes him such a great husband and dad. One of my favorite things is watching him and our son Nick cook together. They make a fantastic mess but they have SUCH a good time. Chris encourages Nick to try new things and taste interesting new foods. At the moment they are experimenting with curries. Nick isn’t completely sold on spicy but we hope he will eventually come around. They laugh and laugh and the end result is usually pretty (surprisingly) good.
What Chris says about Laura
When we first met, I was instantly drawn to her funny, sharp wit, great sense of humor and social confidence. She is the center of our social network, constantly keeps in touch with family and friends and bringing people together for all the large and small events that we love so much. Laura is smart, funny and intensely family focused (both with her large energetic family in England and our small one here in San Francisco). She is passionate about many things, warm-hearted and loves children and animals (especially our dog Elsie). Laura is always reaching out to help people in need (and for that reason is frequently asked to help).
She is an avid reader when she takes time to relax. She is an imaginative and patient mother, constantly thinking of stimulating activities and ways to spend time with Nick, who spends very little time in front of the television. While she does not profess to enjoy cooking all that much, she has quite enjoyed cooking for Nick. She draws her ideas from children’s cookbooks to create the most delicious tasting meals for him. I particularly yearn for the fishcakes and mini chicken pies but rarely get more than a small taste of leftovers.
About our son Nick
Nick is two and fantastic. He is energetic, affectionate, lively, funny, pretty confident, sometimes challenging and COMPLETELY obsessed with trains. We have made sure he has always had plenty of other children around him and he really enjoys their company. He particularly loves his tribe of English cousins – there will soon be eight under the age of four.
Work Life
Chris is an architect and he specializes in designing libraries and community buildings, though his favorite recent projects have been a children’s zoo and a marine mammal rescue center. He works very hard but, because he is his own boss, his schedule is flexible so he spends as much time as possible with Nick and Laura.
Laura used to work for non-profit organizations helping homeless people but now she loves being a full time mother. We are both grateful that we each had a parent at home when we were little and feel very lucky that we are able to do the same for our children.
Hobbies and Activities
Laura and Nick’s weekdays are pretty busy as there is so much to do in San Francisco. We love the local aquarium and tropical rainforest full of butterflies at the new Academy of Science, the zoo, Monday morning art class at our local recreation center. We also love to meet friends for picnics at lots of different parks and playgrounds in San Francisco or just having friends over to our home for play dates. We also like it when it rains and we stay in, snuggle up, read lots of books, do puzzles and watch the occasional video (Jungle Book is the favorite at the moment). We can’t wait to share all this with a little brother or sister.
On weekends, we like seeing friends but we also make sure we have time just hanging out all together as a family. Our favorite place to go is our nearest beach right by the Golden Gate Bridge. It is hard to tell who likes it there the most – Nick or Elsie. Laura – being a Londoner, just can’t believe we have a beach like this on our doorstep AND that you can go there just about all year around. At home, we like working together in the garden, cooking and the current favorite – building huge Lego towers.
Traveling is a big part of our lives. Now most of our vacation time is spent visiting Chris’s family on the East Coast and in France and Laura’s family in England. One day our traveling might get a little more exotic again but, for now, our priority is that our children should grow up knowing and feeling a part of their big and loving family. Also as our children will have joint American and English/European citizenship – we want them to feel at home as possible on both continents. But most importantly, nobody does Christmas dinner quite like Laura’s mother in England!
Home and Community
We live in a classic Victorian home in San Francisco’s Eureka Valley. Laura’s family think it looks like it should be on a postcard. We bought it as a ‘fixer upper’ and it was quite a project. But now we have finished the work and have added another bedroom and bathroom and a big kitchen/family/everything room which opens directly onto the garden. Of course, we now hardly ever use any other room! The house is still really pretty but now very family friendly. It is full of light, fresh air and has lovely views over San Francisco.
Our neighborhood is one of our home’s greatest assets. It is ethnically and culturally very diverse. We love this and are very glad that our children will grow up thinking that this is normal and natural as well as fun and exciting. We are close enough to the city center to take full advantage of its museums, shops and theaters but far enough out to have nice parks, playgrounds and local shops where people know Nick’s name, all in walking distance.
But where we really struck gold is with our street. We can’t claim it was anything but fantastic luck, but we have landed on the friendliest street we can imagine. It is like living in a village. We know everybody on the block, are in and out of each other’s homes and have regular outdoor pot luck barbeques through the year. It is an easy, informal social network. The children all play together and the grown ups support and help each other out.
In closing - our thoughts about open adoption
After having Nick we were clear we wanted him to have another child. We talked about adoption even before Nick was born as we knew we had issues with fertility. We see our son Nick as a miracle as numerous doctors had told us it was highly unlikely we would ever conceive a child. Now, we have accepted that lightening won’t strike twice and we are hoping for a very different, but equally amazing miracle, to fill the space waiting in our hearts. This is the miracle of you choosing us to be parents to your child. Then our family will be complete.
Our promise to you as the birthmother is that your child will always know where they came from and that they will have a life full of unconditional love, opportunity, support, and gentle but consistent boundaries and guidance. We hope that you will be able to come to some peace knowing you have given this child a gift – a chance to love and be loved by adoptive parents and a brother who will always treasure his or her existence. We are very open to continuing communication and we will work to honor whatever level of openness you desire.
Thank you for taking the time to read our letter and learn more about us. We would be so happy if you chose us to love your child. For more information or to contact us, please call AdoptHelp agency at (800) 637-7999.
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