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Gregg & Mara are hopeful adoptive parents from New Jersey waiting to adopt a baby.

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

Dear Birth Family We’re Mara and Gregg, and we’re very grateful that you’re considering an adoption plan. We know this is a difficult decision for you, but at the same time it shows your tremendous courage and selflessness to choose a loving home and bright future for your child. Let us share with you a little bit about ourselves. We tried to pick details and photos that would help you know us the way our family and friends do – as a loving, happy, adventurous couple who are dreaming of sharing a lifetime of love with your child.

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A Short History Of Us We met a little more than six years ago through work. Gregg is a researcher at a big financial company, and Mara is a journalist and writer. Not long after meeting at a conference, we went on our first date to a Brazilian restaurant, where they treated us like royalty (Mara made sure of that because she’s originally from Brazil and knew what and how to order). In no time at all we were meeting each other’s family. Gregg felt so at home at Mara’s sister’s house that he took a deep, long nap on her couch the first time he visited – a habit he keeps to this date.

While dating, we took our first trip together to Mara’s hometown in Brazil and saw that we share many of our core values of family, respect for life, charity, open-mindedness and peace. We also started making our own adventures like hiking or swimming and running races. We realized we had many, many things in common, including a desire to build a family and be parents. In the spring of 2005, we were married.

We expected to start a family very soon, but our goal of growing our family has been delayed by fertility issues. We realized that the most important thing for us is to share our love and compassion with children, and we have embraced adoption as a wonderful, blessed path to parenthood.

We have a strong marriage, built on trust, respect and communication. We truly enjoy each other’s company and love spending time together doing little or a lot, depending on the occasion. We love to cook together (Gregg used to be a restaurant cook), and for half of the year, we collect fresh vegetables from a local farmer. We often watch basketball games during the season, on TV and at the arena, and we love to cuddle up under a blanket to watch movies or documentaries. We enjoy jazz concerts, theater, and summer swim dances under the stars. We feel very fortunate to have good jobs and satisfying careers, which has allowed us to enjoy a lot of travel, entertainment and have a beautiful and comfortable home.

We are also very active. Gregg is a dedicated marathon runner, and Mara a long-distance swimmer, and we’ve competed in many relay races as a team where Mara does the swimming and Gregg does the running. We look forward to sharing this with our children – our family cannot wait to get us one of those “running” strollers, with big wheels, so Gregg can take our child out to the park when he goes jogging. Our nieces have been inspired by Mara’s swimming and are great swimmers already. We plan on taking our children to swimming lessons from as early as possible, so they can enjoy the splashing fun with Mom and Dad.

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Home, Family & What We’re Made Of We live in northern New Jersey with very easy access to New York City and all the wonderful cultural and fun opportunities it has to offer. We have a big, spacious home, set in a tree-lined street in a multi-cultural neighborhood, one block away from a library and a park, with a busy dog walk and playground. We are also less than a mile from a state park with lots of open space for picnics, bike-riding and bird-watching. There are many young families in our community, including several of our friends who cannot wait for us to become parents.

We are very close to our families, and we think it’s a blessing that we all get along and enjoy spending time together. Being around family is a very important aspect of our lives, which is why we’re dreaming about building our own family and adding to the joy of closeness and kinship that comes with family.

Gregg was born in New York City and has one sister, and Mara was born in a city called Franca, in Brazil, and has two sisters. We have two nieces and one nephew so far, and the whole family is very excited and supportive about us becoming adoptive parents.

We spend a lot of time with our families and are lucky to live within a short drive from our sisters and Moms. Besides holidays and birthdays, we tend to gather to support our nephew Aaron during his baseball season, or to watch Gregg in a marathon, or just to play on Gregg’s Mom’s pool with Olivia and Lea, our nieces.

We were very fortunate growing up because our parents wanted us to have a good education. For instance, Mara and her sisters took piano and English language lessons. We all went to college and have graduate degrees. Gregg’s family also instilled in him and his sister the value of education, and they too have master’s degrees. We believe that a good education is the best heritage any parent can pass on to their children, and we intend to provide that for our children as well. We also hope to educate our children about the importance of being part of a community, of being honest with self and others, of living healthily, and of appreciating all the blessings in our lives.


About Mara – by Gregg
Well, first off, she’s beautiful – that’s the first thing I loved about Mara. It didn’t take long to discover her other qualities such as her intelligence, caring heart, and incredible courage. I’m also very proud of the career Mara has built: it’s amazing that she came all the way from a small town in Brazil and became a top journalist in her second language.

We weren’t dating for very long when I knew I wanted to raise a family with her. The thought hit me when I saw her play with her goddaughter Olivia, who is now my niece too. I later learned that Mara has a special affection for children and has helped raise kids all over the world. She first came to the United States to serve as a nanny for a family in Pennsylvania. Later, after college, she lived in London and later in Paris to learn languages and about other cultures. During that time she was living with families and taking care of their children, so she has lots of experience with babies and toddlers!
In addition to being great with kids, Mara is a great friend – to me, and to others. I have seen her help so many friends and family members when they’re having a rough time. Mara is like a steady hand that everybody seems to reach for.


About Gregg - by Mara
Gregg is the right blend of sweetness and strength, a man with a great, generous heart who lives his life with a strong sense of fairness and fun. And when I saw that, I knew he would make a wonderful, loving father.

That’s how I see him as a father – devoted, loving, attentive and fun. I can imagine Gregg spending long hours playing baseball with our children, coaching and teaching the technique and sharing all the history and statistics of the sport that he so loves to collect. We were recently spending a day with family, during which I watched him teach our niece Lea very patiently the basic moves of tennis, just as he has done with me every time we play together. Later the same day he sat with our nephew Aaron discussing the different pitching techniques that Aaron had been practicing. I know he will be an enthusiastic supporter of our children’s academic and athletic pursuits, a generous and fair father who can teach the benefits of discipline and hard work, at the same time inspiring and supporting our children to achieve their dreams.

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A final thought from us Our minds and hearts are focused on the day when we can bring a child into our lives. We recently bought a beautiful and comfortable home so we can have enough space for our children to play, explore and grow. We cannot wait for the time when our children fill up these rooms with toys, laughter, and crying, too, of course. Sometimes we imagine the little footsteps which will soon become louder as they run up and down the stairs with cousins and friends, or little baby noises that will become distinct voices calling up or down for Mom or Dad.

The journey starts with our finding a thoughtful, caring and generous birth family like you. Thank you for considering us. We will always hold you as a special someone in our family, so we wish you peace and light, now and always.

We would love to speak with you.

Please call us toll free at 1-888-425-4009 or Send us a message

Or you can call our adoption lawyer, Robin Fleischner, toll free at:
1-888-582-9141

Or you can call our licensed agency A Loving Choice Adoption Associates at:
1-800-816-6311


With love,
Mara and Gregg