We believe in being of service to our community. Amanda has donated bone marrow, and we've both donated blood many times. We are big supporters of Amanda's college. Recently, Stacey helped her dad build a shed and her father-in-law build a hearth and a guest bed. She also helped Amanda's mom paint and organize their house.

We like to help and encourage people to achieve their goals whenever we can. Amanda has taught English to adults. She had a great time speaking Spanish with students and sharing experiences. Stacey has volunteered at community theatres all around Dallas. Recently Amanda taught at a local college. She helped students perfect their resumes and find jobs. It's always rewarding to hear that a student has found their first job after college!

Stacey's mom took her to her first musical. They saw Annie together when Stacey was four. Stacey can't wait to take our child to their first musical!

We value learning about life from people from different places. We love to travel, and we would share that love with our child.

About Amanda:

About Stacey:

We will teach our child that everyone is valuable. Amanda will teach our child Spanish. We have friends from different backgrounds and will continue to build a diverse group of friends. We enjoy going to cultural events throughout Dallas, including Dia de los Muertos, Cinco de Mayo, and Mardi Gras. We watch movies and plays made by and starring people from different backgrounds, including those addressing our country's challenging history. We'll discuss this history together and encourage our child to ask us questions.

As our child gets older, we plan to visit the Civil Rights Museums in Memphis, Tennessee and Jackson, Mississippi, and we will continue to take part in outreach and family events at the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. We will encourage a child to understand that we live in a complicated country with a difficult past, and that we all must come to terms with that history. We all have the opportunity to improve the world by acting with compassion, honesty, and integrity.

We have been to different cities and countries, and we want to help our child appreciate the value of many perspectives. We recently went to Alaska and Vancouver, and we had the opportunity to stay in a First Nations lodge. We also got to explore Vancouver's old Chinatown. We are excited to share experiences of different cultures and to encourage our child to respect the richness that comes from knowing people from many different places and with many different experiences.

We live in a quiet, diverse neighborhood in a suburb of Dallas, Texas. Our home is a 4 bedroom, 2 story house with a fenced-in backyard that is large enough for a swing set and sand box and room to play. The house has many large windows, so our home is filled with light. Our child will have their own room with their own full bathroom attached. Stacey usually works from her home office.

There are several parks in the area. There is a small park nearby with a castle and dragon theme and another park near the elementary school that has a covered playground, which is important in the Texas heat. We have a recreation and aquatic center nearby as well as a splash park. There are many stores, restaurants and movie theaters nearby to enjoy. Living in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex means we have lots of things to do, like art, science, and history museums, live theater, the Six Flags over Texas theme park, 2 different zoos, and the Dallas Aquarium.

Both sets of grandparents and an aunt and uncle live within a thirty-minute drive. So there will be many adults excited to take our child places. We also have a guest room so that other family members can come and visit.

Stacey's parents, Cindy and Charles, have been married for over 50 years and Amanda's parents, Andy and Ramona, have been married for 44 years. Stacey has one older brother named Stephen and Amanda has a younger brother named Andrew.

All our parents are retired now, and we see them a lot—for birthdays, holidays, and just to hang out and are looking forward to spending time with their first grandchild. Stephen and his wife Rebecca are also excited to have a niece or nephew nearby.

Andrew and his wife Julie live a few hours away, and we visit often. Andrew is excited to show a niece or nephew around his city and is already planning "trips with Uncle Andrew" to share his love of Disney and Harry Potter.

We love to travel. We went to France and England with Amanda's family, and Stacey and her mom went to New York City. We look forward to sharing the love of travel with our child.

Both of our immediate families gather at our house each year for Thanksgiving and have a wonderful time together. We always celebrate Christmas together and we get together for Easter and most high holidays. We look forward to starting even more traditions in the future.

Thank you for considering us. We cannot imagine how difficult this time must be for you. We want you to know that we are thinking of you and we respect and care about you.

We'd like to tell you a little more about ourselves. Our names are Stacey and Amanda. We're a lesbian couple. We've been married for seven years, and we've been together for over ten years. We are excited to have a child, and we know we can provide an encouraging, loving, stable home for a child. We've both done a lot of self-reflection and hard work to accept ourselves for who we are and to live fulfilling, engaged, and rewarding lives. We have learned to work together to take on obstacles and reach out for help when we need it. We will impart these values and acceptance to our child.

We believe that open adoption is the best choice for us. We appreciate the communication, pride, and dignity that a child gains through open adoption. We are excited about providing a loving, caring, and accepting home for a child. As a gay couple we have sometimes encountered negative reactions, largely due to ignorance, and we have answered challenging questions clearly and firmly. We believe we can use our own experiences to help our child develop independence, strength of character, and self-assurance.

The health and happiness of our child will be our number one priority. We plan to work with our child so we can learn about their cultural heritage together and provide opportunities for our child to celebrate themselves and their heritage.

We want our child to know his or her birth-family. We believe every child should be proud of where they are from and should know about their birth family's background. We will also share our own family stories and experiences with our child. Amanda speaks Spanish fluently: she studied in high school and college, and lived in Santiago, Chile. She plans to speak Spanish with any child, because she remembers all the hard work that was needed to achieve fluency. As we live in Texas, speaking Spanish is very useful, and it allows communication and friendship with more people.

We believe our job as parents is to teach our child about the world as it is and as it could be. We believe we can help a child learn to navigate a complex world. We know that adoption brings its own challenges and interracial adoption brings further, specific challenges. We have already begun researching how to help a child face these challenges. We will listen to our child, learn what they think and feel, and help them grow into a happy, fulfilled person.

We both enjoy spending time with family and friends, and we look forward to sharing our family life with a child. We love to visit new places, try new foods, and meet new people. We love theater and movies! However, we know that any child will have their own interests and we are excited to support a child as they pursue these interests.

We appreciate all the love you hold in your heart for considering this incredible sacrifice, and we want to meet you with the same love and affection. We will be happy to share photos, emails, letters and phone calls, and we would be happy to meet in person each year.

With love,

Amanda & Stacey