Hi. We are Diane and Eric, a happily married couple from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and we'd like to thank you for giving us this chance to introduce ourselves to you. We really admire the love and caring you are showing for your baby at this challenging time in your life. We will try through this letter to let you know something about us and our lives and the loving home we can offer a child. We hope this will be helpful to you as you make your decision about your baby's future.

    We met at the high school where we are both English teachers, and right away we knew that we had more than just a professional relationship. We soon started spending time together outside of work - going to movies, making dinners, getting to know each other's families and friends, even just hanging out in a local coffeehouse. After we had only been together a couple of months, Eric was offered a job in California, where he grew up, but he realized pretty quickly that what we had together was special enough that he wanted to stay here in Massachusetts. We not only love each other deeply, we also truly respect and admire each other - not only do we have the same values and the same way of looking at the world, but we each think the other is one of the smartest, kindest, most thoughtful and funniest people that we know.

    From very early in our relationship, we looked forward to having and raising children together. A series of miscarriages and failed fertility treatments were painful, but they did bring us even closer together as a couple, and we soon realized that adoption was the right way for us to try to share our love and our lives with a child. We have many family members, friends, and neighbors who have adopted children, and we are excited to join them as parents.

Diane about Eric

    One of the many things I love about Eric is how much he throws himself into whatever he's doing, whether it's cooking or playing the guitar or feeding the backyard birds or just rooting on the Red Sox. Eric is the cook in our household, and he loves to spend a winter afternoon in the kitchen creating some elaborate recipe for us. Eric is also very creative - he loves to make music, to paint, and to write, and he even wrote and illustrated a beautiful children's book for our nieces. All our friends and family are drawn to Eric because he is such a great story teller and he's so funny - whether he's recounting tales of his southern upbringing or leaving silly answering machine messages, Eric keeps people laughing. He is also a devoted and loyal friend, family member, husband, and, of course, Red Sox fan - and this fall taught us that ultimately undying faith and loyalty can be rewarded.

    If you could see Eric every day at school, as I do, you'd know what a great dad he's going to be. Eric has a relaxed, humorous, patient manner with kids that they completely respond to; I've lost count of how many students have told me how much they love Eric and how much fun he is as a teacher. Eric has a particularly wonderful way of handling the tougher classes, because Eric had a tough time in high school himself, so he can relate to those students in a personal way. I really admire Eric's life story - after some early rebellious years, he completely turned his life around, going to college and graduate school and becoming one of the best teachers I've ever seen. Eric knows that people have struggles in life because he had them himself, and he truly understands and empathizes with people in difficult circumstances.

Eric about Diane

    The first time I saw Diane she was teaching a drama class. She was leading the students in a game, bouncing around on the stage so full of energy and fun and laughter. She carries this warmth with her everywhere, delighting everyone around her with her sense of humor and her kindness. Many of the students she has worked with over the years have gone on to become teachers or to be involved in theater because of her.

    As much as she loves to teach, Diane also loves to learn. She earned a Master's Degree in English and she still takes courses when she can. Diane walks to our neighborhood library all the time and returns loaded up with books. Whenever we travel, Diane is our tour guide, and she is really good at finding interesting neighborhoods and art museums and farmer's markets. She's always excited to see what's over the next hill or around the next corner, and her enthusiasm is contagious. Diane is also creative - for years she directed plays after school and in the summer, and at home she does everything from knitting sweaters for our nieces to inventing new variations of the Italian food her grandmother taught her to make. I think one of the best examples of Diane's creativity and caring is her garden. She turned a backyard that was nothing but mud into a blaze of flowers and a wonderful space to gather family and friends. I can just imagine her sharing her loves and interests with our child, and also encouraging our child to develop his or her own talents.

    Everyone who spends time with Diane tells me how lucky I am. She is smart, compassionate, kind, and caring. She accepts people for who they are, all the while helping them be everything they can be. You should see her with our nieces. She can sit for hours and read to them or help them put puzzles, then jump up to play hide and seek or soccer. Her patience is amazing. She truly loves young people of all ages, and it shows in the way they come to her to talk in good and bad times. I know she's going to be a great mom.

Our families

    We are both very close to our parents, to Diane's brother's family, to Eric's granddad, and to extended family on both sides. It seems that every school vacation is an excuse to travel to visit family in Chicago or New York, Pensacola or Phoenix or Portland, Oregon. We get together for holidays, birthdays, and just for fun, and we talk to someone from one of our families just about every day. Every summer for the past twenty years, Diane's family has gathered for a beach vacation on Nantucket, where the days consist of building sand castles, braving the cold ocean water, reading on the deck, playing flashlight tag, barbecuing, and biking to the farm for fresh corn and tomatoes. It's a time for everyone from grandparents to new babies to enjoy some special time together, and it's something we all look forward to all year. Diane's brother is currently building a house on Nantucket, so we expect to continue this family tradition for the next generation. Both of our families are thrilled by the prospect of bringing a child into the family through adoption; Eric's family is particularly excited to have their first grandchild to love and spoil, and our nieces and new nephew would love to have a cousin to cause trouble with.

Our life together

    We have a beautiful home that we love in a wonderfully diverse neighborhood. We live right across from a lovely park which has a brand new tot lot, playground, and basketball court and is always bustling with neighborhood families, many of whom we've known for years. There's something of a baby boom happening on our block, so our child should have plenty of playmates around.

    Living in an urban area provides us with a chance to do many of the things we love - visit museums, see plays, go to concerts, shop, and try new restaurants. We can't wait to share the joys of the city with our child - the science and art museums, the Boston Common for ice skating, Fenway Park for baseball games. But we also love to hang out at home, reading by the fire in the winter and gardening in the back yard in the summer.

    We are both still English teachers at the same suburban public high school where we met, and we feel fortunate to have found jobs that are so creative, rewarding, and fun. Everyone loves babies, but we also love teenagers - we hope that everything we've learned from our jobs will help us to be good parents at every stage of our child's life. Teaching is a great career for raising a family - we can each take up to two years off to be stay-at-home parents, and once our child is in school, we'll all have the same hours and vacation, including a whole two months in the summer to spend together.

    On school breaks, we really love to travel, and in addition to trips around the country to see family, we have had a great time visiting other countries like Canada, Ireland, England, France, and Jamaica. Many weekends we'll just get in the car and head out to the mountains or the seashore or the woods to go hiking and to appreciate nature; other times we'll head to a nearby city and enjoy the excitement and bustle of New York or Providence or Portland, Maine. Getting to know other cultures and ways of life has been really fun for us, and it is very important to us that our child have the same opportunities we have had to explore and enjoy the world.

A few final thoughts

    Education is obviously extremely important to both of us, and we'd like to assure you that we will encourage our child to develop all of his or her interests and talents by providing the best possible schools. We have already begun saving money in a college fund, and we promise you that we will do everything we can to provide your baby with the opportunity for a bright future. We will do our best to raise our child with a strong spiritual and moral connection to the world, with a sense of hope and optimism, with an appreciation for the wonders of nature, with concern and care for others, with the ability to love and laugh, and with a healthy balance between believing in your dreams and not taking yourself too seriously.

    We would be honored to have you consider placing your baby with us, and we can promise you that we will raise him or her to understand, respect, and love you for the choice you made. We would be happy to maintain whatever degree of contact you are comfortable with; we are more than willing to follow your lead about what you feel is in your and your baby's best interest.

    If you would like more information or are interested in speaking with us, please call Cindy at A Act of Caring (800-556-5635. Thanks and take care.