Stephan and Loretta

Dear Expectant Mother,

Hi. We are Stephan and Loretta. Thank you for taking the time to learn about us. We hope that this letter will give you some insight into us, our family and lives. We can only imagine the difficult decisions you are facing and we sincerely wish you the best. We are excited to start our family through open adoption.

About Us

We met 10 years ago and hit it off right away. After dating for three years, we were married in 2003. We discovered that both sets of our parents were married on the same day in the same year. So at our wedding, we celebrated not just our own union, but also the 40th anniversaries of each of them. We feel destined to have a long and loving relationship as our parents did. We are supportive of each other, able to give and take, and are enjoying building our life together. We make time to do things together and we give each other the space to do things that we each like. We like to try new restaurants, watch movies, go to museums, bike ride and spend time with friends. We both like to travel and are lucky to have family and friends to visit in many foreign countries. We have traveled together to Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy and Thailand and we feel that visiting other countries has enriched our lives.

We feel that our challenges with infertility have strengthened our relationship and our desire to become parents continues as we go forward with open adoption. We have friends and family with young children with whom we enjoy spending time and we look forward to expanding our family.

About Loretta (by Stephan)

Loretta was born in New York and spent most of her childhood in Connecticut, where her parents, two younger brothers and their families still live. She went to college in Washington D.C. to study architecture and construction management. After working for the government as an architectural trainee for three years, she moved to California where she worked in small architectural firms while volunteering to build houses for Habitat for Humanity. She then worked to renovate housing for low-income neighbors and her passion for helping others and the community blossomed. Loretta spent 13 years committed to the non-profit organizations that helped with housing and now has transitioned to a family foundation to give grants to families and children.

Family is very important to Loretta. Although her family lives on the East Coast, she is in weekly contact with her parents and regular contact with the rest of her family. We travel to visit them at least once a year. Loretta is looking forward to creating her own family. She is a kind, generous and determined person and I know she will be an excellent mother.

About Stephan (by Loretta)

Stephan was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. His mother was born in Germany and still has a lot of family there. Stephan’s father was in the military and when Stephan was two years old, he and his mother returned to Germany while his father was stationed in Vietnam. After five years in Germany and two more in New York, the family moved to California to live with his father’s family in a small town just 30 minutes south of San Francisco. Stephan’s father had three children from a previous marriage and although he was not raised with his siblings, Stephan is close with them as well as his niece, nephew and many cousins. His family has an annual family reunion and he looks forward to sharing this tradition with our child.
 
Stephan attended college in southern California and earned a degree in business administration. He has spent his career working in marketing for both technology firms and as a shopping center developer. He enjoys the challenge of building businesses through all aspects of marketing.

Stephan is a patient, calm person. He likes attending Giants baseball and Sharks hockey games, and loves to play golf. Family is also important to Stephan and he looks forward to becoming a father.

Our Home and Lives

Our home is our own little castle. It is where we relax, share time with friends and family and where we build precious memories. Our suburban neighborhood is a diverse middle class community with many families. There are several parks, a working farm and a bike path to the San Francisco Bay nearby. We have wonderful neighbors and we often help each other by collecting mail and cat sitting during vacations. Our street becomes a playground in the summer evenings and the neighborhood kids even love to help Stephan wash our cars. We feel we have the best of both worlds – living in a quiet, residential neighborhood, yet close to shops, restaurants, playgrounds and all the benefits of San Francisco. There is one furry animal in our house, a cat named Rourke.

Our Family and Friends

We feel fortunate that our life is full of loving friends and family, and we have a wide network of support. Loretta’s parents are warm, loving, fun people. They revel in their role as grandparents and are actively involved in their grandkids’ lives. They are always present at soccer games, dance recitals and family celebrations, and are excited to add another grandchild to the mix. Stephan’s mom is also looking forward to being a grandma. She has offered to help with child-care and will enjoy sharing her love of cooking and gardening. The whole family looks forward to helping us welcome a child into our family.

Stephan has a close group of high school friends that we see on a regular basis. We treasure our friendships as we do our family. From BBQs to pool parties, we enjoy time with them and their families. They, and our other friends, are excited about us becoming parents through adoption and are eager to meet the new addition to our family. Many have children that will be excited to have a new playmate and several friends and family have recently adopted either domestically or from China.
 

Parenting

We have very similar views on raising a child. We believe that love, patience and consistency are among the most important values. We both also value education and open-mindedness. With guidance and encouragement, we hope to help our child grow into a creative, understanding person who is respectful of others. We will take cues from our child about how to meet his or her needs in order to help him or her flourish. We are committed to nurturing and supporting a child to follow their dreams. We were both raised Catholic but are not active in the church. We consider ourselves to be spiritual people and believe that we should treat all people with dignity and respect. We will share our beliefs with our child and will encourage him or her to explore organized religion if he or she wants.

We can't wait to laugh and play with a child. The options are endless: read stories, sing songs, go on hikes, fly kites, create with finger paints and play games - whatever our child is into! We also speak German and Spanish, and look forward to sharing these languages to provide an opportunity for a child to be bilingual. When the time is right, we are eager to show our child the wonders of the world - near and far.

If you choose us to raise your child, we are open to building a relationship that we are all comfortable with. We view open adoption as the beginning of a new relationship. It is important to us that a child understands where they came from and that it was an act of great love that allowed them to join our family. Bringing a child into our family is very important to us and through this adoption process we are excited to meet the child that we believe we were meant to love.

If you would like to contact us directly, please call us at 1-800-246-0089 or email us at stephanandloretta@gmail.com. You can also call our friendly adoption attorney, Susan Romer, at 1.800.U.Adopt.Us or email her at adamsromer@aol.com.

Warmly,

Stephan and Loretta