Hello! Our names are Shaun and Mary Frances.

First, we thank you from the deepest depths of our hearts for choosing adoption for your child and for considering us to be your child’s adoptive parents. We believe that giving life to a child and choosing to place that child with another family takes extraordinary courage and love, and we know you have both!

Who we are
Shaun grew up in Alabama and Mary Frances in Mississippi. After meeting as members of a college community choir, we married in 2010 and moved to Oklahoma in 2013 after Shaun took his first job out of graduate school; Shaun is a psychology professor and chair of his academic department. Recently, Mary Frances completed her Master’s degree in library science and works part-time at our local public library.

Faith in God is an important part of our lives. We are active members of a medium-sized church; Shaun leads song worship on Sundays and Mary Frances teaches children’s Bible classes. Most of our closest friends are members of our church; we love them dearly and spend much time with them. Once we become parents, we will not force Christian faith on our child, but we will provide opportunity and examples for developing a faith of their own.

We also are members and supporters of our local arts community; we regularly sing in local community choirs, participate in community theatre productions, and attend festivals and other events. Hobby-wise, Shaun likes to exercise and play video games, and Mary Frances likes to read. In fact, Mary Frances has a large collection of children’s books she has been collecting since childhood.

We have a young niece and nephew (ages 5 and 3) who we adore and spoil; we also have many friends and other family members with young children, so if you choose to place your child with us, they will be surrounded by other children!

Our journey to adoption and parenting
We want to be parents and have the blessing of a child to love and care for. Since moving to Oklahoma, we have tried to grow our family biologically, but with no positive results. Although we are disappointed that we have been unable to give birth, because Shaun was adopted when he was a young child, we have long considered adoption and decided a couple of years ago to pursue it. We are happy to have found Deaconess Pregnancy and Adoption and think they do excellent work in helping to unite families through adoption.

Although the reality of life as parents is difficult to predict, we think we are ready! We expect our lives will change in many ways. Right now, we basically can go anywhere and do anything we want, anytime we want, but we know that will not be possible once we have a child to provide and care for; we are prepared for our lives to revolve around making sure we are doing whatever is best for our child. As we have patiently waited to have children, we have gotten to observe our family and friends with their children and have many excellent role models for parenting, and we have done a LOT of babysitting. Also, Shaun’s studies and work have given him loads of knowledge on parenting and child development.

Once we become parents, Shaun will continue working full-time in the daytime as a psychology professor and we expect one of a few things to happen with Mary Frances’ schedule:

1) She will continue to work part-time, but in the evenings so we can tag-team on caregiving.
2) She will obtain a full-time job and our child will be cared for during the day by a nanny or high-quality daycare.
3) She will leave her paying job and work as a stay-at-home mom.

We are open to adopting a child of any racial or ethnic background. Shaun comes from a multi-ethnic adoptive family and we have a racially and ethnically diverse group of friends. Our hometown is a highly diverse community, so we think our child will have many opportunities to be around other people who look like them. If we adopt a child of another racial or ethnic heritage than ours, we also plan to honor that heritage in many ways, from décor to cultural experiences.

A big family
We think that openness is important to adoptive children’s well-being and sense of identity as they grow up, so our preference is for an open adoption, but we also want to honor the birth parents’ wishes. If our child’s birth parents desire an open adoption, we will welcome them into our family; our family is open and loving already and will be excited to add new family members. If our child’s birth parents prefer a closed adoption, we will honor that wish as well and make sure that our child knows that their birth parents love them with all their hearts!

As for visits, we have busy schedules, but our child’s best interests will come first; we plan to schedule visits around holidays and other special occasions, in addition to other visits, as often as 5 times per year. We also are open to frequent email contact, pictures, and child-birth parent gift exchanges. Basically, if the adoption is open, we want our child to be surrounded with love from their adoptive and birth families and for our child to have the chance to love them back.

Once again, thank you for making the decision to give your child life and the gift of an adoptive family who will love and cherish your child for the rest of their life. Whether you decide to place your child in our family or another, we pray that God will bless you through this journey.

Shaun and Mary Frances