ParentProfiles.com

Eric & Kathryn are hopeful adoptive parents from Ohio waiting to adopt a baby.

If you are pregnant and considering placing your child for adoption, please read the following Dear Birthmother Letter.

Who We Are KAT
My name is Kathryn, but no one has called me anything but Kat since my college days. I’m in my mid thirties. I love to bake and cook, travel, read, ice skate, yoga, watch movies and go to Disney. I am the Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner at a Free Clinic. I plan to stay home for the first 16 weeks of our child’s life, and then work about 14 - 21 hours a week.

ERIC
As I write this, I’m in my mid thirties. When I graduated from college in the early nineties, I did what every other liberal arts graduate did: I went into computers. I work out of my home office. Since I work out of the home, I have the flexibility to watch over our children while working, and also the ability to stop work for a while to be a caregiver when needed. My job’s flexible hours will also let me tailor my work day and work week to help with errands and parenting, which is a major advantage for everyone.

One of my loves is music – all kinds of music. I also love to read, and my interests range from history to science fiction and beyond. I hope that our children will come to love music and reading as much as I do.

CAROLYN
Our adopted daughter, whose story is detailed below. She's like any almost-four-year-old: her favorite color changes from day to day, she loves her preschool, she enjoys gym class and dance class, and she insists she's a big girl. Recently she's taken to announcing that she will be a mommy and a pilot when she grows up. She very much looks forward to being a big sister, and asks us from time to time "when will my baby brother or sister get here?"

OUR HOUSE
Our home is 1920 Dutch colonial, and we bought it with children very much in mind. It has a huge front porch, five bedrooms, and three full baths. In the basement is a brand new media/recreation center/library/play room.

On the first floor is a gourmet kitchen, a dining room just barely large enough to seat twenty guests if they get really friendly, and a living room complete with fireplace, and children’s play space. The third floor is made up of Eric’s study/office and a guest room that is often filled with loved ones. On the second floor are the bedrooms.

Outside we have great big trees that keep the house cool in the hottest weather, a small apple orchard (6 trees), a strawberry patch, and blueberry bushes.

The house is in a multi-racial suburb of a large Midwestern city with excellent public schools, its own summer camps, swimming pools, and ice skating rink. It is down the street from elementary school with playground and public library branch and within walking distance to all three schools (elementary, middle, and high).

We have one pet: a black tuxedo cat named Gravity. She mostly likes to lay around, be fed, and love us lots.

How Adoption Has Touched Our Lives KAT
I have always known I was adopted, and we plan on telling our children that they are adopted from day one, as we have with Carolyn. We will keep a diary once we are contacted about being a part of an adoption plan so our child has an adoption story. Carolyn has her adoption book and her adoption story. You are welcome to be a part of that adoption story with a picture and letter. Making an adoption plan will be one of the hardest things you ever do; please know that your child will know that your choice was made with love.

I was adopted at birth through a closed adoption and for my entire life I have respected my birth-mother for the difficult choice she made. My life has been one of opportunity and love. I will be forever grateful that she had the strength, bravery, and great love for me to place me with my adoptive parents so that I could live the kind of life she felt she couldn't give me.

ERIC
One snowy December Friday afternoon; the fire crackled, Kat was reading a novel, Eric was working, and Christmas carols played. The phone rang. Kat answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Are you paper ready?”

“Who are you and what am I paper ready for?”

“Sorry,” said the man on the other end of the phone. “I am an emergency room social worker and a little girl was born here last night and her mother got your dear birth-parent letter and would like you to be her parents.”

The next Monday night we went to the hospital to pick Carolyn up. She was the most beautiful baby we had ever seen and we just fell in love with her. And just like that we became Carolyn’s parents. We have loved her more with each passing day.

Important Stuff OUR FAMILIES

KAT
My mom and dad adopted me in March of 1969 after years of infertility treatments. From the moment my dad picked me up (I was a few months old) and I snuggled into his neck, I have been a daddy’s girl. My mother and I share the usual mother/daughter relationship. My parents cannot wait to become Grandparents for the second time. They live in Florida only 3 hours from Eric’s Dad and stepmother, so visits are frequent. My brother, who is also adopted, lives on the west coast. We get to see him many times a year. He loves Carolyn and is very excited to be an uncle again.

ERIC
My father and stepmother have 14 grandkids among them, and yet they manage to make each one feel special and they love to have time with each grandkid in turn. I have very strong bonds to my aunts and uncles, as well as many of my cousins, and from them all I learned the importance of family. Every summer my Eric’s side of the family has a family reunion, and as a result, Carolyn calls all of my dad’s siblings by some variation of grandma and grandpa. She is one of the luckiest kids I know, to have 8 grandparents instead of just four.

I would have to say that out of my immediate family I identify with my late mother the most, as I have a very similar personality to hers. Mom was a teacher her whole life, and I think it was from her that I absorbed my desire to teach in my own way.

THINGS WE LIKE TO DO TOGETHER
We hope to create in our children a love of family, friends, travel, art, reading, and music. As a family we have been to Disney often (Kat hopes to stay at every Disney resort before she is 50 and even owns Disney stock), New York State, the Jersey Shore, San Francisco, LA, Florida, Philadelphia, Austin, Chicago, Alanta, and Boston.

Every summer we go to a local music center for the classical outdoor music programs. Additionally, we support our local zoo, science center, natural history museum and nature center by being active members. We cook often – sometimes just pasta, sometimes impromptu dinners for friends or family, and sometimes whole gourmet meals. We enjoy going out to eat with friends and at age three Carolyn loves to eat out as well.

ON RAISING A MORAL CHILD AND OUR VIEWS ON RELIGION
We believe in the religion of family, and celebrating the love that a family can bring. We have many good friends that Carolyn calls Aunt and Uncle and these friends help to celebrate that love. Kat was raised as a reformed Jew and Eric was raised Christian. When we joined in marriage we decided that we would celebrate any holiday that allowed us to bring friends and family together under our roof. Every year we celebrate with a huge Christmas open house, a Passover Seder, an Easter dinner, and a Jewish High Holidays break-fast, as well as more traditional secular holidays like Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July.

Our Hopes and Dreams We hope that by reading this letter you have gotten to know us a little and are willing to consider us as parents for your child. Please know that we are open to meetings, sharing letters, and pictures, if this is something you desire. We will respect whatever decision you make regarding contact. We dream of a second baby in our house, lives, and hearts. We hope that you can help us make this dream a reality.