Dear Expectant Mother,
Hello! We are Sabine and Stephan. We deeply respect the challenging decisions you are facing, and appreciate you taking time to read about our commitment to building a solid, loving family through adoption. We are extremely excited about creating our family through open adoption! We believe we have an incredible amount of love and security that we can offer to a child. We hope that this letter will help you to learn more about us, and how devoted and enthusiastic we are about becoming parents.
About us
We were both born and raised in Germany. We met 14 years ago in a town called Aachen. We knew right from the start that we were meant to be together and have had a strong connection to each other from the first day on. Our relationship grew very quickly, spending every day together, and we married 6 month later in Sabine's hometown. We have been happily married now for 13 years and look forward to sharing our love with a child. We believe that the strongest part of our relationship is that we are always open with each other. We are able to talk to each other about our feelings and what is on our mind. Although we are very close, we give each other the freedom to pursue individual interests.
Soon after getting married we moved to the United States. We fell in love with the Bay Area in California because it is multi-cultural and there are many opportunities for people of different ethnicities to meet and thrive here. We applied for the US Citizenship and will be American Citizens by the end of 2010. We are very much looking forward becoming an American!
We love the outdoors and like to go camping with our friends. We own a camper and love to explore northern California. We are excited to share the beauty of nature. We both love to swim and that is something we are looking forward to teaching our child.
Our Home
We live in a house on top of a hill in a town just east of San Francisco. Our home has a big backyard and we are surrounded by lots of nature. There are lots of kids in our neighborhood and our town is a very safe and quiet. We are lucky to have excellent public schools in our area. We have spent a lot of time remodeling and working on our backyard together which was both the fun and challenging.
We both are very creative people. Stephan draws and paints and has built many pieces of art for our house and garden. Sabine is a ceramic artist who works from our studio at our home. We both love to cook and that is something we both thank our mom's who are also great cooks. We try to eat healthy and like to use organic and local food when we can. That is one of the reasons why we love California so much. We often make our own bread and we can't wait to start making our own baby food. It is very important for us to eat dinner together as a family every night.
Our Animal Family
We share a love for animals and have two very friendly dogs. Aiko is a pointer and he is the sweetest dog you have every met. Niki our tiny Chihuahua is very loving and adores children! We also brought Kevin our cat with us from Germany. He is now the senior in our family because he is 17 years old.
About Sabine
Sabine grew up in the suburbs of Aachen a medium size city in Germany. As a child, her family took a lot of trips to Spain and Italy, which help develop her interest in traveling. Growing up, her parents encouraged her to follow her dreams. She was always interested in art and studied Graphic design in college. After obtained a masters degree, she worked in Television production for several years before getting a job in the Fashion industry designing catalogs and printed materials. Once she moved to California, she continued designing catalogs for the web until she decided to pursue her interest in Ceramics. Sabine now makes whimsical ceramic pieces, which she sells in galleries and at shows. She also teaches ceramics to kids at different elementary schools and at summer camps. She looks forward to sharing her love for clay with a child.
About Stephan
Stephan grew up in a small town in Germany. His parents were both pharmacists who owned their own pharmacy. Stephen, his parents, and his younger brother often spent summers swimming in the Mediterranean Ocean at his great aunt's house in Spain. As a child Stephan had a passion for building things and developed an interest for electronics 
and computers as a teenager. It was his love for computers (and the ocean) that lead him to California after earning his Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. After starting his own video game company, he now works as software executive in the Silicon Valley. He enjoys working with people and building technology that people use every day.
Our family and friends
Although we call the Bay Area our home, we still have strong ties to our families in Germany and visit them at least once a year. Despite of the distance, we feel very close to our families. Sabine's parents have been married for 46 years now. They come to visit us at least once a year and are usually stay for 2 months at a time. Sabine has one sister who lives with her boyfriend in Germany. Sabine parents can't wait to meet their first grandchild.
Stephan's parents live in Bavaria, Germany and also come and visit us on a regular basis. They have also married for over 46 years. He has one brother who is married and they have to beautiful children. Stephan loves and adores his niece and nephew and his niece is also his goddaughter. He tries to spend as much time as possible with them and works hard to keep a strong bond between them.
We have a lot of friends all over the world, and of course, many here and in Germany. We feel that it is important to stay close to our friends so we visit each other often, and our door is always open to friends. Since we both love to cook, entertaining at home is easy and fun.
Our thoughts on parenting
We believe that it important to have open communication with a child in order to build a trusting relationship. We believe that the best way to discipline a child is by teaching and finding positive ways to help and guide a child to learn to make good choices. We also believe that it is important for parents to be good role models, setting good limits, while maintaining a sense of humor.
We were both raised Catholic and although we do not attend church we are both spiritual people at heart. We will always been supportive of other religious beliefs, and living in such a diverse place, we are fortunate to have friends of many different faiths and beliefs. A child will be exposed to many belief systems and we hope to promote a tolerant open-minded attitude towards religion, so that a child will know that he or she is free to choose whatever spiritual/religious beliefs that make sense to him or her.
Since we speak both German and English, a child will have the opportunity to be bi-lingual.
Our Promise
We are both committed to create a loving and happy environment where our child can grow up, pursue his or her dreams and become a happy adult. Our child will grow up in a healthy, nurturing, artistic, colorful and loving world.
Thank you
Thank you for considering us as prospective parents for your child. We are extremely grateful to you and to the process of adoption. We admire your courage and strength!
We believe in open adoption and will honor any degree of contact that you are comfortable with. We are looking forward to meeting and getting to know you. To learn more about us, you can visit our website at www.sabineandstephan.com. We are happy to answer any questions about us and you can reach us directly at 1-888-809-9129 or email us at adoption@sabineandstephan.com. You can also contact our friendly adoption attorney Susan Romer at 1-800-823-6788 or email adamsromer@aol.com.
We are looking forward hearing from you soon.
Love, Sabine & Stephan
