Greetings!

We are Gary and Danielle, and we are excited at the opportunity to share our lives with you through this letter! While it is impossible for us to understand what you have been thinking and feeling in making such important decisions in your life, we hope to share with you enough information to help you make another valuable decision. We pray that the Lord be with you during this moment of careful consideration and that you will feel His comfort and His love. While we may never meet you, please know that we are grateful that you have taken the time to consider us through this brief glimpse into our lives.

We met nearly 14 years ago and after several years of being the best of friends we started to date and eventually married in July 2006. We, along with our parakeet Lilley, live in a 3-bedroom home in a great community with many young families! Our home is warm and welcoming and situated in a family-friendly neighborhood. We are close to shopping and restaurants, medical facilities, the library, endless parks, a water park, and children’s museum. We have a home filled with much love, laughter, humor, respect and prayer. We value the three F’s: Family, Friends and Faith. Both of us grew up in large, outgoing extended families who spent all of the holidays, birthdays, and many weekends throughout the year together and these are the traditions and memories that we want to pass on to our family. We have a great, supportive network of friends that have truly shown us love and compassion through their words and actions with one of our friends commenting about the strength of our marriage “without one, there is no other.” Finally, our faith has formed the foundation for which our marriage is built and that same faith is what continues to build our marriage as we continue to grow in our relationship.

Making time to spend together is a top priority for us. We make it a point to have dinner together as often as we can in the evenings. We love spending time with both of our families whether it’s having dinner, spending time at the swimming pool, grilling, playing outdoor games like bocce and croquet or just simply visiting. On the weekends we love to get in car and just drive around. Again, we are free from other distractions and it offers us a great opportunity to just visit and laugh with each other. We both love to travel and have a special fondness for Disney World, the beach, and anywhere recreational like Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri or Sea World in San Antonio, Texas. We simply cannot wait to enjoy these places with our children. We both enjoy going to the St. Louis Cardinals baseball games and being part of the great atmosphere! During the colder months out of the year, we are busy watching Gary’s team play basketball, or together watching a movie and eating popcorn. Most importantly, Gary and I make it a priority to attend weekly mass together. It is during this time that we are able to re-focus on the important aspects of our lives such as helping others, becoming better individuals through our thoughts and actions and simply taking the time to pray together.

Gary is an only child who grew up in a small rural town. He graduated from college and is one of the lucky few whose passion is also his job. He is currently the head girl’s basketball coach at a local high school. His father passed away in 2002 after a battle with cancer and although he misses him terribly he has come to appreciate his mother all the more. Gary has a witty sense of humor that naturally attracts him to everyone that he meets. One of his biggest attributes is his attitude. He always looks at the glass half full and realizes that any situation could be much worse. He sees himself as a catalyst, trying to bring other people into a more positive mindset. One of his favorite quotes that he models his life by is “The City of Happiness is in the State of Mind.” Gary is extremely loving, compassionate, respectful and loyal. Gary is very energetic and has a love for sports of any kind, especially basketball in which he is a coach. He enjoys watching ESPN and keeping up with all of the sports whether it is basketball, football, baseball, NASCAR, hockey, golf and any other sport imaginable. Gary is excited to share his love for sports with our children whether he is acting as coach or supporting from the sidelines. In his spare time he loves to hit the golf course with some of his coaching buddies or one of Danielle’s uncles. One of Gary’s favorite things to do is to eat out. He often “tricks” Danielle into going out to eat by telling her we can go to her favorite Mexican restaurant.

Danielle comes from a family of two children, having one older brother, William. She graduated from college with a degree in Business Administration and went on to later complete her Masters in Business Administration. She has worked for the past ten years for a large hotel chain taking on their LEED Green Building Projects, Historical Renovations, and is in training as a Paralegal. Danielle too is very close to not only her immediate family but with her extended family of cousins and their families. Danielle is compassionate and has a great amount of empathy for others. While she loves to be out and about she also enjoys being at home, caring for others, taking care of the house, playing in her flowers and cooking. Danielle wants to teach our children the key ingredients in life including family, love, respect, education and religion. Danielle loves to shop and will always look for the best bargain. She enjoys reading in her spare time and looks forward to reading to our children in the evenings before going to bed. Danielle cannot wait to spend time with our children in the kitchen teaching him or her how to cook the family favorites and baking during the holidays to share our goodies with our friends and family. Danielle has served as a Cabinet Member for our local United Way and is always interested in helping others. She plays the organ at their Church and enjoys playing the piano at home.

Adoption for us is seen as a gift for all involved and for us it has been a gift that we are open to. We always knew we wanted a family but with our infertility struggle the dream has not been realized. Throughout the trials we have endured we have been strengthened in our relationship, grown closer together and have learned that babies are truly gifts from God and from God we trust that all blessings come. Our faith has been tested but has never waivered during this time as we know that God has bigger dreams and plans for us than we can realize for ourselves. The thought of having a baby in our house giggling, running, laughing and playing warms our hearts. Even the thought of late night feedings sounds pretty good. We are committed to offering this child a life of unconditional love and support, a life in which he/she will be brought up as a Catholic, will be given a parochial school education, and will be taught to show respect and empathy toward others.

We wish you peace as you make your way through this process, and comfort in the knowledge that your heart will lead you in the right direction.

Sincerely,

Gary and Danielle