Hello.

Our names are David and Kristen. We are a husband and wife who both work as nurses. We met in college, started out as friends and have now been married for over 13 years. A couple of years after we were married, we became parents, which since then has been the greatest privilege we could have ever experienced. Early on in our married life, we did not realize how much we would love having and raising children. We have found that we get to experience life through their eyes as they grow and discover more each day. We have cherished every moment and consider our children the greatest blessings and gifts of our lives. Even before we had our first child, we knew we wanted to adopt. It has always been in our heart to open our home and life to a child that wasn’t biologically ours. This is because Kristen was adopted by a beautiful couple when she was a young teen. Due to circumstances that were of no fault of her own, she found herself with no where to live and had no family that would take her in. Her adopted parents then stepped in and welcomed her into their home. For the first time in her life she experienced tremendous love, warmth and acceptance. It forever impacted her in an immensely, positive way.

We had at one point tried to become foster parents with the option to adopt. The inspectors toured our home and stated that we had a beautiful home and family. Later, at the final certification, the agency said we would have to agree to never have another biological child of our own because the State had a maximum child per house rule for foster children. If we did, the state would come in and remove the foster child from our family. This did not seem right to us as we had plenty of room, finances and love to share. So we decided that fostering to adopt was not the right path for us. We also had always been a little concerned about the uncertainty and trauma around traditional adoption. We knew that there would always be the possibility that the birth mother could change her mind and decide to take the child away from us. We knew that this would not only have devastating effects on us but on our children as well. We did not want to put them through the heartbreak of getting attached to a new sibling, only to have it not work out somehow in the end. This is why embryo adoption seemed to be the perfect solution for us.

We are committed Christians and raise our family to follow Jesus and the Bible as God’s Holy Word. Jesus is the glue that holds us together always. We attend a non-denominational church and have always homeschooled our children because we wanted them to be brought up knowing God’s word as truth and not just a set of moral stories told to children. Our children excel scholastically, and we encourage our kids to each seek God and develop a personal relationship with Him. We try to instill in them to not just do this because Mom and Dad tell them to do it, but we want them to value a relationship with God in their own lives and to make it their own.

When it comes to personalities, David is an extrovert who likes a lot of action and adventure. He enjoys sports such as skiing and surfing. He likes to travel and go to out to concerts and sporting events. Kristen is an introvert who values safety, security and routine and would rather have quiet night in a cozy home. Kristen reminds David of all the potential hazards in life and David encourages Kristen to “get out of her shell” and take some chances. We have such a nice balance together.

We are both currently working as nurses. David works full time while Kristen has a flexible job, which works around David’s schedule. We have never used any childcare and make our schedule work so at least one parent is always home with the children at all times. We currently live in a 5 bedroom home, but we are in the process of building a new construction 6 bedroom house with a larger yard for us to give the children more room to play outside. We live in a family friendly suburb, and our children have access to just about any interest they would like to pursue. Some of the various activities and lessons they have been involved in over the years include swimming, horseback riding, acting, modeling, computer coding classes and lego engineering. They have also been involved in basketball, soccer, Takewondo, sewing, ice skating, wood working and much more. We are surrounded by an abundance of beautiful parks and playgrounds and can often be found at some sort of splash pad or water park when the weather gets warmer. Since we homeschool, we have a lot of flexibility to encourage our kids to pursue whatever interests they may have. We are able to participate in a lot of local field trips and family vacations throughout the year. A good education is important to us, and we often hire private tutors or have our children take extra classes when we see they need more help in an area of their schooling. It is really beautiful to watch them grow into the gifts and talents that God has blessed them with, and we enjoy being a small part of them discovering their calling in life. We will often use our vacations as teaching trips throughout the year as well as a way to have a fun family time. Our kids are very outgoing and social and enjoy the many different co-ops and meetups with friends throughout the week. Our kids love babies and we have heard them often pray and ask God to bring more babies to our family.

When we first got married, David told Kristen he would like to have 10 kids. Kristen laughed at him at first not realizing how becoming a mother would change her heart and transform her completely, since she was a driven career woman at the time. After having her first baby Kristen left her career for more than a decade to be dedicated and present Mom. After our first baby, we had four more to give us the happy number of five children. There has been some heartache mixed in our happiness with two pregnancy losses including an ectopic pregnancy. Since then, our children have been growing and getting older, but we still feel that we are not done. Kristen has recently gone back to working on a limited basis. But we still feel that children are indeed the greatest blessing and far more important than anything we can achieve in our careers. Although being a parent isn’t easy, we believe this is our greatest calling, and we welcome all the babies God choses to bless us with.

Thank you for reading our story and for your consideration of our family. We will cherish any child that we may have the privilege of raising. We promise that they will be loved and cared for with all of our hearts for their entire lives. Thank you and God bless you.

David and Kristen