Dear Expectant Mother,
We would first like to say that, whether you choose to make your adoption plan with us or not, our hearts are with you as you make this very difficult decision. We know it’s a decision that requires more love than anyone not going through your experience can understand. We are grateful to you and all women who consider adoption, and, should you choose to make your adoption plans with us, we pledge to do all that we can to help you live well through the process and the joys and sorrows that come with it.
Here’s a little about us as a couple: Susan was a longtime camper-then-volunteer at a Girl Scout Camp in the High Sierra. In 2002, she co-led a backpacking trip for eleven girls, and her co-leader happened to be Scott’s sister-in-law. They got to talking, Susan saying how she was ready—now that the majority of her medical training was behind her—to welcome a loving, cool guy into her life. Criteria were as follows: he should be tall; he should be spiritual; he should have an interesting professional life himself; and as a bonus it would be nice if he could cook really well! Scott’s sister-in-law, said, “hmmm. I think you should meet my brother-in-law.”
Scott didn’t see it coming. He was knocked off his feet and fell head over heels. Susan and Scott were married in 2005.
From the beginning of our relationship, we have anticipated sharing our love with a child. Indeed, we both wanted to be parents even before we met, and now we are more than ready to welcome your precious and beautiful child into our lives. We live in the North Bay Area in Northern California, in a lovely house in a small town near gorgeous country. Our neighborhood is a diverse one, and we look forward to the time when our child will attend the well-regarded elementary school just down the street. When we found our home three years ago, we planned for plenty of room to grow our family. The rolling, wooded hills, redwoods, apple orchards, and vineyards that surround us tell us that we are in the country, but the hour’s drive to San Francisco gives us plenty of opportunities to enjoy museums, parks, and neighborhoods that we’ll continue to visit as a family.
We are blessed in having loving, supportive families who live nearby, including our four nephews and one niece who can’t wait to have a new cousin. Holidays and birthdays are celebrated with enthusiasm by both sides of our family members who are local, and we have also been lucky to be able to travel to visit relatives in Colorado, Texas, and the Cayman Islands (the Caribbean islands where Susan’s grandparents were born and raised.) We both come from loving and happy homes, with great siblings, with dogs and cats, and with parents who loved to enjoy life and who eagerly contributed to their professions and local communities.
Both of our professional lives see us working hard to care for and nurture young people. Susan works as a child psychiatrist helping the families of our county to heal and grow through challenging situations. Scott is a tenured professor at our local state university, where he loves his job teaching and mentoring students. Our professional lives are all about supporting children and young people—now we would like to bring that loving work into our home, by having our own child.
We indeed love our work, but we also love to play. Free time finds us together exploring local beaches (our county has one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world), hiking on local trails, or skiing in the mountains. Summers include volunteering at the camp that brought us together. We also love to see the world—a recent trip took us to France and Spain. The rest of the year, while Susan is attending a dance class, reading, or enjoying her music at the piano, Scott plays guitar, paints beautiful watercolors, writes novels for fun, grows tomatoes, and works around the house. Both of us strive to grow and nurture ourselves spiritually. We are active members of a local church community, and Susan practices meditation with a group in our town, while Scott keeps up his regular yoga practice.
In short, we have a loving, respectful marriage and a happy, fun home where lots of learning and growing go on. We see our great marriage as having a larger purpose, to do our part to bring more love and respect into the world, and the most important way we want to do this is by nurturing our own child together, to help our child grow into a strong, happy person who is eager to make a great life for him- or herself and for others.
Scott on Susan
In 2002, I was not certain that I was ready for marriage again. But when I met Susan, I said to myself, “you’d better get yourself ready for marriage again—you’d be crazy to let this one get away!”
Susan is incredibly kind, passionate about everything and everyone she cares about, and deeply loving. She’s also funny and fun-loving—a blast to be around. Her nature is to give to others—whether through her work, where she has deliberately chosen the less lucrative path of serving kids and families who are most in need in our county, or through her many volunteer activities, at our church, in her professional community, or in our town. I’ve never met anyone who knew her who didn’t also greatly respect and value her, seeing her as a role model. She’s certainly a role model for me.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that she will be a great mom, someone who can lovingly set limits while letting our child grow strong into his or her own identity and direction in life. She will welcome our child into the world through her own love and care and also by introducing her to so many wonderful things about being alive: to a love of nature, to a delight in her own body through dancing and music, to many wonderful, caring relatives who live as close as an hour’s drive away or as far away as a warm and beautiful Caribbean island, and to her own great knowledge and understanding about what it means to be happy to be alive.
Susan on Scott
Scott is the most warm-hearted man I know and his friends, students, and niece and nephews are drawn to his nurturing and supporting ways. He is patient, loyal, forgiving, and compassionate. He is the one who brings a breakfast treat for the tutors he works with at the University. He is the one who will stay at work late writing letters of recommendation because he knows they will help students reach their goals. Most importantly I think is that he knows how to care for himself so that he can be there when others need him. I know that Scott will be a great father.
I fell in love with Scott because he finds beauty all around him. When we go for walks, Scott stops to notice the birds and their songs and encourages me to stop with him. Scott brings a loving appreciation of beauty to all that he does, whether he is in nature, taking photographs on one of our trips, or water coloring. I know just through his example, he will teach our child to see the world through an artist’s eye the way he does.
