Dear Expecting Mother,
We are Lilia and David. Thank you for taking the time to read our letter. We know that this is our first opportunity to introduce ourselves. We hope that you will get a sense of who we are and about our hopes to expand our family, and that we can continue to get to know each other and that we may possibly share the adoption experience together.
About us...
We have been married for six years. We have one four year old daughter, Ava. We always hoped for a large family, with the love and joys of children growing up together. Our doctors tell us that we are not able to have another child biologically. Our dreams for a larger family, however, have not changed and we look forward to bringing at least one more child into our lives through adoption.
We live in West Los Angeles, three miles from Santa Monica Beach, in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house that we own. The house has a front yard and a back yard and we enjoy having fruit trees throughout the garden area (lemon, fig, peach, and sweet lime). We are fortunate to be surrounded by four parks within walking distance from our house. One park has a pool designed for children to use. There are wonderful public and private schools in the area as well.
About Lilia...
Lilia was born and raised in Los Angeles. Her father, who passed away in 2004, was from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, and her mother, who lives in Los Angeles County, is originally from Guadalajara, Mexico. Lilia grew up with her parents and her older half-brother. She was 5 years old when her brother left to attend college. He now lives in Colorado.
While Lilia was young, her parents owned their own businesses, primarily women’s and children’s clothing stores in East Los Angeles. Lilia accompanied her parents to clothing factories to make purchases for the stores. She has very fond memories of those times. Lilia and her mother traveled to Mexico every other summer to visit family and to sightsee. Lilia attended Catholic school for elementary school and was involved in sports and studio art throughout her elementary and middle school years. The summer after graduating from high school, she was a foreign exchange student to Turkey, living with a host family for three months.
Lilia attended a women’s college in Massachusetts, majoring in History, with an emphasis on Theology. After college, Lilia lived in New York City for two years, working as a paralegal. She attended law school in New Orleans, Louisiana and returned to Los Angeles after graduating, and currently practices family law with a firm in downtown Los Angeles.
Lilia enjoys yoga, tennis, and hiking. She ran the Los Angeles Marathon in 2002 as a once-in-a-lifetime experience for her! Lilia also enjoys watching movies, reading, and baking, particularly making cookies with Ava. She loves to sew and is an avid knitter. Being a mother to Ava has brought joy to Lilia’s life and she experiences so much excitement and inspiration when she looks at the world from a child’s perspective. Spending time with children brings back memories of her own childhood and how wonderful it is to explore new things and experiences for the very first time, such as going to a ballet performance, hanging out at the beach, or even going to an art museum for the first time.
About David... 
David grew up in Wisconsin, in a large family including 5 siblings and over 40 cousins. He is the second oldest child in his family of 6 children. As a child, David was involved in Cub Scouts and Little League baseball. During the summers, David, his siblings and his cousins spent their days swimming, fishing and camping.
After high school, David worked to put himself through college in Wisconsin and later, law school in Los Angeles. Now, as an attorney, David owns his own practice in West Los Angeles, representing employees in enforcing their workplace rights. David studied German in High School, and Spanish in college, and considers himself to be “semi-fluent” in those languages.
David has run 13 marathons, and a few triathlons. He currently runs a few times a week. David also enjoys gardening, especially with Ava. David still follows all of the major Wisconsin sports teams. He has been a vegetarian for most of his life and does most of the cooking for the family.
David loves being a dad and he encourages Ava to pursue her passions. From the time Ava was an infant, David has read books to her before bedtime. He would truly embrace the opportunity to be a parent again and to and to love, guide, and share a life with.
About Ava...
Ava is a happy, playful, energetic four-year old. She enjoys all styles of dancing, and has been taking ballet and gymnastics classes for two years. Ava and Lilia watch all of the current television dancing shows, and try to copy the dances together in the living room. Since Ava was born, she has developed an appreciation of books - first, by being read to every night before bed, and now, by holding her own books. She is learning how to swim. She has recently mastered the hula-hoop. She has a great sense of humor and loves to sing. She is looking forward to becoming a big sister.
Our Family Life...
Family is very important to us and we love to spend time together going to the Southern California beaches, watching Ava’s ballet classes and recitals, shopping at farmers’ markets, visiting Lilia’s mother, running through the parks and playgrounds, and occasionally eating at cafes and restaurants. We like to visit friends throughout the state for weekend visits. Many of our friends are starting their own families and have very young children. We often organize "play dates" for Ava and her friends on the weekends.
We have also traveled to Wisconsin and Puerto Rico to visit our family. We are all learning French, and are brushing up on our Spanish with friends and relatives. And, of course, we practice our hula hooping in the back yard.
We would like more children because of our own experiences. Lilia has a half-brother who is significantly older than she is, so her upbringing was that of an only child. Having that experience, Lilia would like to have a family with many children. David grew up with brothers (one of whom adopted a daughter), and sisters, and dozens of cousins, and would appreciate the opportunity to have more children around. All of our family members and closes friends are supportive of our plans to expand our family through adoption and are eager to help.
Our thoughts about parenting...
We value education highly - - not only formally structured education, but more so the daily events that provide learning opportunities. We seek out different types of experiences, foods, activities, people, arts, cultures, and events to satisfy our own curiosities, and also, as parents, to provide a child with a foundation to become a well-rounded, tolerant, talented, informed, social yet independent adult.
We value diversity and our friends include families of many races, cultures, and family types. Ava considers some of her friends as "family," and refers to a few as her “cousins.” Ava has, among her friends, children from Mexico, Belgium, France, Sweden, and Tunisia. She is learning both French and Spanish and has learned many Mandarin and Swedish words from her friends. For a child growing up in Los Angeles, there are tremendous opportunities to be exposed to various races, ethnicities, and cultures.
We respect your courage in considering adoption. We appreciate the time and energy you have put into this decision. We hope to get to know each other better and work together to create an adoption that we all feel comfortable with. To learn more about us, please feel free to visit our website at www.liliaanddavidadopt.com. If you would like to talk to us directly, please call us toll free at 1-877-618-8601 or email us at liliaanddavidadopt@yahoo.com. Or you can call our friendly adoption attorney, Susan Romer, at 1.800.U.ADOPT.US. (1.800.823.6788)
Sincerely,
Lilia and David
