Dear Friends

First we want to express the love and respect we have for you. We know that in considering adoption, you are exhibiting pure love for your baby. We pray daily that you will be happy and healthy, that you will have good things in your life, and most of all that you will be blessed with the wisdom and courage to make whichever decision is right for you and for your precious baby. We want you to know that we honestly care for you, for your well-being, and for your happiness. We feel honored that you might consider us as prospective parents to your child and we want you to know that any child placed in our home will be loved and cared for unconditionally. We would gladly welcome an open adoption. Having said that, we would like to introduce each other. We want to thank you in advance for getting to know us- the good, the quirky, and the imperfect. Our names are Malone and Brittany.

Brittany is a very outgoing and social person that is, in all ways, my better half. Brittany graduated from BYU-Idaho in December 2007. She has a green thumb and loves gardening. She loves to keep indoor plants and frequently shops at Wal-Mart to “save” their houseplants. Brittany has a passion for reading. She loves almost all genres of books from historical fiction such as Naya Nuki by Kenneth Thomasma to mystical fantasy like the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull. One of her favorite things is to curl up with a book and eat cinnamon bears. When the weather is warm, Brittany loves to be outdoors and especially to go camping. She loves the feeling of sitting next to a warm fire under the stars and roasting, oddly enough, Starbursts. One of Brittany’s many strengths is her mothering nature. She loves serving in the nursery at church and spoiling her nieces and nephews. Brittany is the most wonderful woman I know and I’m sure that, given the chance, you will come to love her too.

Please forgive me if I brag a bit about my amazing husband. After high school, Malone served a mission for our church in Sacramento, California. Then, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Kaskaskia College. Not long after that, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from BYU-Idaho in December 2007. He is now pursuing a PhD in Biochemistry. Knowing this, you might assume that Malone is a bit of a nerd. To be honest, you would be right. But that is one of the biggest reasons why I love him. He has such a love of learning. Although he has worked hard in his studies, he would be the last person to brag about it. He is determined to use his knowledge to help better the lives of others and hopes to assist in discovering a cure to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, or other debilitating diseases. My role in all of this is to stand by and support him and make sure that he doesn’t dress too much like a nerd.

Malone has many other interests. He loves to grill on his barbecue, and it might surprise you that he is an expert cinnamon roll baker. In his leisure time, Malone likes to play games on our Wii, especially Mario Kart. He also loves to have movie/game nights involving some “manly” kind of movie like the James Bond movies, Iron Man, or Reign of Fire. Penguins are his favorite animals and his favorite sport is baseball. When the weather is good Malone loves to be outside. It doesn’t matter whether we’re just outside for a long walk, riding our bikes, or taking a weekend camping vacation to the lake.

Brittany and I met when Brittany’s family moved to Illinois in 200l. I’m not going to lie, at first I thought she was a bit of a brat because she was so upset about having to move. But as time progressed, I started to develop a little crush on her. Of course, I was only 18 and she was 15, so it was nothing serious. Then I left for my mission, and Brittany and I wrote back and forth as good friends.

Although I had had a crush on Malone for several years, I was also looking forward to meeting all the “hot guys” at BYU-Idaho. So I was determined to forget about my “little crush” on him. But I couldn’t. I kept writing back and forth to him, and was ecstatic when he got home from his mission. At that point, it was obvious to everyone that we were falling in love. After a while, my best friend decided she had had enough of our silliness. So she emailed Malone and said, “I know that Brittany likes you, and I’m pretty sure that you like her, so why don’t you two just get together already?!” Thank goodness for my friend, because she brought us together.

From there, things moved quickly. I was madly in love, and I wanted to share the rest of my life and eternity with Brittany. I was so nervous when I proposed that I forgot to get down on one knee! But Brittany "reminded" me and then said yes! On December 17, 2005 we were married in the LDS temple in Nauvoo Illinois. We discussed our desire to have children right away, and we have tried nearly our entire marriage to expand our family. Our journey with infertility has been a bumpy one in which we have discovered that Brittany has a condition called PCOS and a condition during pregnancy called Incompetent Cervix. The latter condition was responsible for the premature birth of our son Gavin who passed away only a week later. Throughout this journey, we have always known that we wanted to adopt. So, after much discussion and prayer, we know that adoption is right for our family.

That brings us to now. Although we can never understand what you are going through, we share common ground. You see, last year our family watched as Brittany’s sister placed her son for adoption. So we know that by adopting a child, we are making sacred promises to his or her birth parent(s). We commit to never break those promises. We are not perfect. We make mistakes. But we promise to do everything within our power to parent perfectly because we know that any child placed in our home is a precious child of God who is loved and sacrificed for.

Take care and know that we will be praying for you.

With love,
Malone and Brittany