open adoption website of Frances and Mat for birthmothers seeking open adoption


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About Frances

In Mat’s words:
Frances is loving, thoughtful, loyal and has a great enthusiasm for life and love of fun and adventure. She is interested in the outdoors, hiking and nature, as well as theatre, film, music and environmental issues. She cares about everybody around her, she is the one who thinks of thoughtful gestures, who remembers to call people and who brings people together if they have had an argument. As I got to know Frances I found out how important family, friends and especially children are to her. After school she had worked as a nanny in Paris and after university she lived in India for a while and worked as a volunteer at an orphanage. She loves spending time with her friends’ children - she now has nine godchildren (must be a record) and takes a close interest in all of them. She has been incredibly helpful with, and understanding of, my two sons, while they were going through some difficult teenage years.

Frances’ mother’s family is from New York City, and they now live scattered throughout the United States. She is immensely proud of her mixed American heritage – mostly Irish American but also Hispanic and French. Her mother has never taken on a British passport despite living in Britain since she married, and has certainly never lost her American accent! Frances studied at university in New York, and did summer jobs in the US on Martha’s Vineyard – she has good friends as well as many cousins, uncles and aunts in a number of different states, from California to Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington DC.

Frances has three brothers and they are all married or engaged. Frances’ two younger brothers live very close by, and are just starting their families – she has a toddler-aged niece and another on the way…. Her eldest brother married a New Yorker and they live in Manhattan with their son. We also have great fun with all our cousins, including Frances’ cousins in the US, who range in age from a few weeks to 11 years old – and more on the way.

Frances currently works part time on legal projects and for charities based in London. She is looking forward to spending her time being a stay at home mother

How we met:
"We met at a friend’s fancy dress party with the theme of “Eastern Promise”. We immediately hit it off… but….I was about to go to work in India for a year the following week, so neither of us followed up, despite our mutual interest which neither of us (of course!) expressed.… Fate determined otherwise, because by chance we bumped into each other four times during the year I was supposed to be working in India (including at a pizza joint in town and a boat race). I got in touch with Frances when I returned to work in England and suggested she join a group of friends on a skiing holiday - it was a great way to get to know each other! We both love skiing, and started – perhaps “accidentally on purpose” - losing the rest of the group on the ski slopes…. Given the effort fate made to throw us together when we were supposed to be on different continents, we wondered why we hadn’t met before.”