Clara and Mario

Introducing CLARA MARIO

Dear Birthparent,

love to hear from you!

Thank you so much for showing an interest in us and for taking the time to read our letter. We appreciate your courage in this process and especially in considering open adoption. We can’t presume to know what you are feeling, but we feel great love for you and the child that you are carrying.

We’d

We are so excited at the thought of becoming parents.

We have dreamed about being parents since we realized our love for each other would bind us for the rest of our lives. We are thrilled by your interest and we hope you will enjoy getting to know us.

VISIT: hopefullyparents.com/clara-mario

Mario Mihelcic & Clara Lucia Valdez Chon

CALL TOLL-FREE: 1-800-233-4461

EMAIL: claramarioadopt@yahoo.com

VISIT: iheartadoption.org/users/ claramarioadopt

VE A Clara habla

español

Hello WELCOME

At the heart of our relationship is a shared love of discovering

people from different backgrounds and understanding deeply their culture, language, and traditions. We view ourselves as

global citizens because of our shared immigrant experience; Clara being from Mexico and Mario’s family emigrating from Croatia. Mario adventured to Mexico in 2002 to volunteer at a Catholic Franciscan Mission serving the less fortunate, where he met Clara, a social worker there. After three years of maintaining a cross-border, long-distance relationship, we realized our love was so strong that we wanted to create a life together.

We see welcoming a child into our life as an extension of the love that we share.

ou r

9

TO

5

We are both fortunate to be employed by College of San Mateo, a community college in the San Francisco Bay Area. Clara is a preschool teacher at the college’s child development center, where she takes care of children between the ages of 2.5 to 5 years old. Students and staff (including the center’s Our colleagues are very teachers) are allowed to place their children in the excited for us to start center to be close to their parents, and our child will our family and will help have the same opportunity. Clara has even worked with children who were placed with parents through ensure that our schedules remain flexible to meet IAC! Mario works in the International Student Center with young adults from all over the world. the needs of our child.

< Helping nephew Chavita solve a puzzle in Mexico

< Clara’s pres

chool celebra

ting Valenti

ne’s Day love

< Meeting

niece Lorna in Croatia

Friend, Bodhi and Mario share a look! >

< Far Left: Fun in Austin, TX

< Left: Our

friend, Little Leo, lights up Clara!

HOME

We live in the quiet hills of San Mateo, California, which is a city located in the heart of the Silicon Valley, just about halfway on the peninsula between the hustle and bustle of San Francisco and San Jose.

Our home is a one-bedroom apartment that is part of a staff housing complex and sits adjacent to the college campus where we both work. We live only a five-minute walk away from work! We enjoy the complex because our neighbors are our coworkers and many of them have children. Living here also allows us to save money to purchase a house through a special employee retention program. We look forward to sharing with our child the environment that makes our life here so special. We can already imagine taking the 10-minute drive to Mario’s parents in Foster City to walk the city’s many parks and quiet streets, or strolling along the levee and watching the airplanes land at San Francisco airport, or biking against the wind to Coyote Point and enjoying a well-deserved picnic lunch. We look forward to holding hands as we walk the college campus and take in its sprawling view of the San Francisco peninsula.

HOBBIES INTERESTS

Our lives center around our families and sharing precious time together. Consistent with Mexican and Croatian traditions, time with family is especially important.

Together we..

go camping take road trips play bocce ball and rounds of mini-golf and so much more.

We can’t wait to share the fun experience of “movies under the stars” at Pinecrest Lake in the Sierra Mountains with our child. When our child is old enough it’s with enormous excitement that we will attend together live shows of our favorite bands, including U2, Coldplay, Bruce Springsteen (he shows no signs of slowing down), and Mumford and Sons.

One of our many adventures with Mario’s parents

< A ‘day-cation’ keeps us smiling!

< Mario and his parents

< Mario’s family in Croatia

in Dubrovnik

< Christmas with Clara’s family in Mexico

< Bodhi’s falling asleep

FRIENDS FAMILY

Beyond our immediate family in Northern California, we have extended family from Mexico to Croatia. There’s a chance that English is the last language spoken during our family celebrations! Even our close friends come from Scotland and Argentina. Clara comes from a large loving family in Mexico. Mario’s parents emigrated from Croatia, a small Mediterranean country on the Adriatic Sea that is shaped like a boomerang. As an entire family, we attend Mass at a Catholic Church serving the local Croatian community. Mario’s parents are just as excited to be grandparents as we are to become parents. In preparation for welcoming their grandchild, we have shared with them everything we are learning about open adoption. They have fully embraced this process and opened their hearts to sharing their lives. They did tell us they can’t promise not to spoil their grandchild! Our families outside the U.S. made us promise to send photos of our child by email as soon as we take the photos. In exchange, our families are saving money for us to visit as soon as our child is old enough to travel.

In CLOSING

We promise you that we will love our child with all of our hearts. You will always have the opportunity be a part of his or her life and our child will always know how much you love him or her. We are committed to raising a child in a home that values faith, love, honesty, and courage, along with instilling a sense of joy, wonder, and hope in this amazing world.

You will always have a special place in our hearts and prayers. We look forward to getting to know you, so please feel free to call or email us anytime!

Mario Mihelcic & Clara Lucia Valdez Chon

C al l s oon!

To learn more about us...

CALL TOLL-FREE: 1-800-233-4461 EMAIL: claramarioadopt@yahoo.com VISIT: facebook.com/claramarioadopt VISIT:

hopefullyparents.com/clara-mario

OR iheartadoption.org/users/ claramarioadopt