Dear
Expectant Mother,
We
would like to say thank you. Your courageous consideration could bless us with
the greatest gift in life, a baby. You’re truly making our dreams come true. Thank
you for looking at our profile and taking time to learn a little more about who
we are. The journey and experience that you are on is difficult, and we are
grateful you have chosen life. We could not begin to understand this tremendous
decision that you have to make and how overwhelming this must be. We want you
to know whichever path you ultimately choose, we want to make sure that you
feel cared for and supported.
Our
story started 23 years ago when we first met in 1996 and we have been together
ever since. The first 10 years we were young newlyweds in our 20’s and we
focused on our careers and did a lot of traveling. Having children was always
part of our plan. When we were ready to start our family, conceiving did not
come naturally for us and after couple of years of no success we contacted a
fertility specialist. After a few years of working with the fertility
specialist we still had no luck conceiving. I was told by doctors the next step
in trying to conceive would be IVF and we decided it wasn’t for us. To say the
least, we were really upset at the idea of never becoming parents. We needed to
take some time to decide what we wanted to do next.
One
day we had this great conversation about adopting. In that moment we both
realized that adopting was God’s plan for us. We opened up and shared stories about
how we felt God had been guiding us to adoption. We know that we will not have
biological children of our own, but the lord has given us a purpose, to enrich
a child’s life as if that child was our own flesh and blood. Since the day we
made the decision to move forward on our adoption journey I have already
noticed a change in us. We purchased our new home with dreams of it being a
great place to start our family. One of the guest bedrooms has already begun to
evolve into the nursery so your newborn will have everything he would ever need
as soon as he arrives home. We say he because we have always wanted a boy,
Manuel is an only child and hopes to continue the family name.
Our
family and friends are over the moon excited for us as they know about our
journey and how important this is to us. My mother and sister have already purchased
way too many baby gifts for your child. Shawnda’s sister just had a baby in
June and also has a 2-year-old son. Shawnda is a very hands-on aunt and she has
a lot of experience with babies. This is great as the cousins will be close in
age to play with each other and they live just 40 minutes away. Your baby’s future
grandparents are just 15 minutes away and live very active life styles. Manuel has
a very large family that live 8 hours away that we regularly visit.
We
have truly been blessed in so many ways, and hope soon to be blessed with a
child to love and cherish as our own. We love life and to have fun
whether it’s with our friends, family, or just the two of us. Our evening
dinners are important to us, it’s a time to disconnect from our cell phones and
talk about our day. Shawnda enjoys cooking and
creating healthy meals. We have a passion for traveling and we can’t wait to
share new experiences with your child. Shawnda loves to be outside in the
garden, working on the flower beds, maintaining the yard, the bird feeders and
bird baths. Sharing these outdoor activities with your little one will be so
much fun. We love to be active and outside, as we live near a big lake where we
go boating, fishing, and swimming over at
our parents houses. Both of our parents have pools and we are looking
forward to those wonderful moments. Manuel also
loves golf and played on team when he was a kid. He lights up when he speaks of
teaching his child to play golf one day. We both enjoy golfing and talk about
how awesome it’s going to be to have your child join us. During the winter we
love to have a nice fire pit going outside where
I can see us sipping on hot cocoa and making s’mores. We sincerely hope that we
could be the couple you chose to raise your baby, whichever path you choose we
wish you the best.
We
talk about our future and are looking forward to creating new beautiful family
memories. Shawnda recently retired so she can be a stay-at-home mom. We have
been so blessed to be able to travel all over the world, and now we’re ready to
show your child the world.
Sincerely,
Manuel
& Shawnda