Nancy & Tom's Adoption Pages

This letter contains all the information on our Web site (http://ntadoption.tripod.com).

Please print this and keep it for your reference.

Dear Birthmom,

Tom and I would like to express our admiration for you as you consider the very difficult decision of making an adoption plan for your child. We hope that you feel you will make an informed decision by getting to know the parents you choose. Our wish for you is that you find peace and happiness in your decision to place your child with the adoptive family of your choice.

Let us tell you a little bit about our family. Tom was born and raised in New Jersey as the third child of five. Except for one sister, his family still lives in New Jersey. I was also born and raised in New Jersey and am the youngest child of four. We are a happily married couple who have always wanted to share their love with children, as we had from our parents when we were growing up. Our infertility led us to build our family through adoption. In December of 1997, we were blessed with our son, Kevin Matthew. The fact that he is adopted makes him even more special to us. As a family we enjoy taking stroller walks to the park and swinging on the swings, taking Kevin for a walk around the neighborhood in his little red wagon, playing in a pile of leaves in autumn, and sledding on his saucer down the front yard in the winter.

The story of how Tom and I met is rather unique and in some ways very ironic. Although we grew up eight miles apart in New Jersey, we did not meet until many years later in Chicago, swimming laps at the local YMCA while training for triathlons. It was our love of sports and other shared interests that drew us together. Three months after we started dating, we discovered my brother and Tom had been on the same swim team twenty years earlier. We knew it was fate that brought us together but what clinched it for Tom was my subscription to Sports Illustrated! He knew he couldn't go wrong with a woman who loved sports. My love of pro-basketball, especially the Chicago Bulls, makes Tom a "basketball widower" during the NBA season! Through our shared interests and love for each other we have become each other's best friends. Our marriage of almost ten years has drawn this friendship closer together.

Tom is a computer consultant and will complete his Masters Degree in June. I have my Ph.D. in biology and work at a large pharmaceutical company. When Kevin joined our family, I changed my work schedule to three days a week to spend more time with him. It is the best decision I ever made. Kevin and I do many activities together, some of which are swimming at the YMCA, and participating in a playgroup. I look forward to spending the same kind of quality time with a new baby. Motherhood agrees with me very much; I just love it! When Tom comes home from work he looks forward to playing with Kevin. The nighttime ritual of getting a bath, reading a story and going to bed is Tom's and Kevin's special time together. On weekends it is fun to see them playing peek-a-boo or rolling on the floor and laughing. In Kevin's eyes Tom is "Fun Guy" and I am "Stability"! Tom is an involved father and he is looking forward to sharing the joy of parenting with another child.

We live in a three bedroom split level house, which we renovated ourselves before we started our family. Through our redecorating we learned a lot, however, the first room was a trying experience. At 10:30 PM one evening, we were installing the last piece of baseboard in the downstairs bathroom. Tom drove a nail into the main water supply line. Since the hole was before the shut off valve, we had to have the town water company come out and turn off our water from the outside! Meanwhile, our newly painted and tiled bathroom was flooding with water! The next day we showered at the YMCA, went to work, and had it repaired that evening. Now we look back and laugh, but at the time it wasn't that funny! 

Lawn and gardens surround our house which is on a quiet "U" shaped street that has very little traffic. There are many families on our street who have young children. I get together with several moms during the summer to stroll our babies and share stories. The neighborhood has Easter egg hunts, summer picnics with children's games, and Christmas parties each year. The area is extremely safe and the schools are excellent.

Our hobbies include participating in many sports, gardening, remodeling, and travel. We own two weeks of timeshare based in Hawaii that, through exchanges, allows us to vacation anywhere in the world. Over the last seven years we have vacationed in many places, the highlights of which are Hawaii, Jamaica, and St. Lucia (Virgin Islands). We are planning a trip this spring with my brother's family at their timeshare at Disney World. We foresee taking vacations like these with our family as it grows. It will be very rewarding watching the kids play in the surf, build sand castles, or horseback ride. 

Family reunions are very important to us. In 1995, we had a large family reunion of my immediate family for my father's birthday. The party was a surprise for "Poppy" from all the nieces and nephews, ranging in age from 1 year to 18 years old. Last summer we hosted a surprise birthday party for Tom's dad with his immediate family. Both reunions were a great time for all the cousins, aunts and uncles to visit. Kevin has received an overwhelming welcome to the family, as will a new baby. Both Kevin and the new baby are fortunate to have all their grandparents and many, many cousins, thirteen to be exact! The new child will also have a big brother with whom he or she can share their feelings, experiences and questions they each will face as adopted children.

Adoptions today are different than adoptions many years ago, in that there is a growing trend towards open adoptions. We believe openness in an adoption promotes healthy adoptions in the best interest of the child. Openness can be in the form of letters, phone calls or meetings, depending on the comfort level and agreement of the biological and adoptive parents. We are willing to pursue an open adoption and are very interested in your ideas on this concept.

We are motivated, stable, healthy individuals who do not smoke, and only have an occasional drink. We have had our experiences of stressful times. Thirteen years ago I dealt with the death of my mother by talking to friends and family and getting back into the routine of my life. I realized that my mother would want it that way. Tom had a serious motorcycle accident many years ago where he ruptured his pancreas. He recovered quickly and sold his motorcycle. We are confident that we are level headed, self-reliant individuals who make the best of life's situations.

We understand the importance of education and we will encourage it to our children, but the option of pursuing higher education will be their decision. Our years of employment have secured our health insurance, life insurance, and investments for retirement, and we know we are able to provide an environment of happiness, encouragement, love, learning, and discipline which seems most critical to us based upon our own childhood experiences. We will teach our children to maintain high standards, values, morals, and be respectful of others. We feel it is very important to expose children to science, art, religion, travel and worldly experiences. This will provide them the foundation to make their own informed decisions as an adult.

In reflecting back over the last year and one half, we realize we have been truly blessed with our son, Kevin. He has changed our lives in many wonderful ways. It was always important to us to have more than one child based on our own sibling experiences. We are close to our siblings as adults and want to provide the same opportunity to our children. We know in our hearts we can provide a loving home to a new baby. We are open to being available to you throughout the adoption process and we are willing to pay all legally allowable expenses. Please feel free to call us at our toll free number. We are looking forward to getting acquainted with you.

Wishing you the best,

Tom, Nancy and Kevin
1-800-484-7865 (Enter Pin #4758)
email: ntadoption@yahoo.com

Adoption Resources

Adoption by Choice

Adoption by Choice is an adoption service that promotes healthy, secure adoptions. The owner is a birth mother herself and has her Masters in Social Work (graduated 1996). She emphasizes education on important issues in adoption: finding a birth mother, decreasing risks in your adoption plan, negotiating levels of openness in the adoption, raising an adopted child, and financial considerations. She has solid working relationships with a large adoption agency as well as an experienced adoption attorney. Birth parent counseling is also available. Contact Adoption By Choice at (630) 510-2970.

A Baby from Heaven Adoption

A Baby from Heaven is an adoption Facilitating Service, as defined by the State of California, Family Code. They advertise for the adoptive couples who are interested in adopting, or for agencies and their attorneys who are interested in advertising for their clients. The service may act as an intermediary between the parties to an adoption. In the state of California, adoption facilitation is a private service, and not subject to licensing by the state. The owner is an adoptive mom, who found her child when she was “matched” through an adoption facilitator. She has been involved in adoption facilitation since 1995 and assisted over 150 adoptive couples with their adoption plan. Contact A Baby From Heaven at (714) 771-5777, or e-mail them at terry@babyfromheaven.com

What is an open adoption?

Many adoptions today are open. What is an open adoption? An open adoption means there is some level of communication between the birth mom (or birth parents) and the adoptive parents. At a minimum, this is in the form of letters and pictures sent by the adoptive parents, via an agency, to the birth parents once a year. As the relationship grows between the birth parents and the adoptive parents, the amount of openness can evolve if it feels right for both parties, but doesn’t have to evolve if it doesn’t feel comfortable for both parties.

What are the advantages?

There are many advantages of openness in an adoption. These advantages are in favor of all three members of the adoption triad: the birth mother, the adoptive couple and the child. Often the birth mother and the adoptive couple will meet, prior to the birth of the child, and get to know each other. This gives the birth mother the opportunity to “choose” who her child will be placed with, and gives her a sense of what the presumptive adoptive couple are like. On the other side, meeting the birth mother gives the adoptive couple an opportunity to see and get to know the birth mother, hopefully find out some medical history and ethnic background, as well as learn about the heritage and genealogy of the child.

Having this information will provide answers to the future questions which will arise from the child as he/she grows. The third and most important advantage of an open adoption is for the child. By knowing his/her adoption story as he/she grows, he/she will think of being adopted as a fact (like having blond hair and blue eyes), and not as a negative connotation which makes him/her feel different. Disclosing to a child at eighteen that he/she is adopted puts that person at a psychological disadvantage. Knowing that he/she is adopted from infancy is much healthier and easier for the child to accept. Open adoptions promote healthy adoptions.

How open was our first adoption?

In our son’s adoption, after meeting and getting to know his birth parents prior to his birth, and them getting to know us, we all felt comfortable having a fully disclosed adoption. We exchange pictures, letters and e-mails directly. They have sent our son Christmas gifts, and we always send them flowers on his birthday. This is not the usual case, but it is right for our situation. We realize that this level of openness may or may not be right for our next adoption situation. We recognize that the level of openness will be determined by all members involved as the adoption relationship grows. We believe strongly in the advantages of an open adoption, because we believe in having a healthy adoption for the child.