Hello! We're truly excited to share a little about ourselves with you. It's been a long journey for us getting here, but we couldn't be more thrilled to have the opportunity to start our family.

We actually met in our mid-30s during COVID, and it was clear from day one that there was something special between us. We met on a hot July day and had a six-hour long picnic. There’s not anyone else in the world that we could do that with! When everything shut down for COVID, we didn’t have much else to do besides talk, play games, and listen to music (still our favorite things to do!). After seven months of dating, we got engaged! We had a lovely, small, backyard wedding with family and have been inseparable since. There is so much love in our household and we've been wanting to grow our little family, but sadly we have been unable to so far.

We tried to conceive naturally for almost a year, but were unable. We connected with a local fertility clinic and after all of our preliminary testing came back with zero red flags, we pursued IUI. We did 3 cycles back to back with negative results. It was incredibly disheartening because we never heard anything but positive comments about our “numbers” and health. After the third one failed, we decided to pursue IVF. Again, we were encouraged by all the doctors and had no reason to believe it wouldn’t be successful.

Our first egg retrieval got us 10 eggs, but none were successfully fertilized. This was completely shocking. We were completely naive to this possibility. We were told that if we upped our dosage of hormones and added a trigger shot, we could see a better result. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Our second egg retrieval got us 18 eggs, but again the same thing happened - none were successfully fertilized.  We were told by the head doctor that he had no idea why we were unable to conceive. It has been a long, painful road - but one that will be worth it when we finally are able to grow our family and have another little person in our house to share our love with! Our doctor provided options for moving forward, one of which was embryo adoption (we had never heard of it before). After some research and some conversations, we feel like this is the best path forward for us.

We want our household to be filled with lots of Jesus, music, laughter, and college football/NBA games to watch! Our Christian faith is very important to us and we want to foster a love of Jesus to our child. It’s important to us that our child be kind, inclusive, and loving towards all people - whether they look or think like us. And of course, we want to raise our child to be a goofball just like we are! Our household is silly. We love to laugh together; to play and have fun! We love to explore our city and make even the most mundane moments enjoyable. Our lives are filled with music all the time - singing, dancing, guitar, piano, and record-playing.

We’ve lived in our home for almost 2 years now, and we have the perfect room set aside for our future child. We have a big backyard for all of us to play and relax in. Not only that, we live in a wonderful, safe neighborhood with two parks within walking distance. We go on walks quite often, passing by these beautiful parks and talking about how one day we will have a little one alongside us to play and enjoy life with. All of these happy memories to come keep us going through the heartache we’ve endured.

We both come from really good families that we’re in constant contact with. We live within an hour of both sides and try to have as much family time as possible!

Mom is the youngest of 4 daughters so there will be three fun-loving aunts, cousins, and eager grandparents to join in on the fun. The hopeful grandparents are the cornerstone of our family and we all genuinely enjoy spending time together. They have started traditions that we still do today! We attend our local university’s spring football scrimmage, compete in the “palette challenge” (where we try food blindfolded and have to guess what it is), walk before pie (we can’t indulge in Thanksgiving/Christmas dessert before we walk off the calories), roast hot dog weenies the night before Thanksgiving, and so much more.

Dad comes from a smaller immediate family, but has a gigantic extended family! Oftentimes we have to rent out a church fellowship hall or other large space to accommodate all the aunts, uncles, grandkids, great grandkids, and misc. “cousins” (there are many people that come to family events that may not be blood-related. We still call them “cousins”!). We celebrate all major holidays together, including a massive Easter party with treats, games, and a super-competitive confetti egg war. We love to share meals with family and explore the new hotspots in the city together. Dad also loves to play basketball with his youngest cousin, who is like a little brother.

Mom and dad have both been blessed with good, stable jobs that provide a solid foundation for a growing family.

Mom has been an elementary school teacher for over a decade. She really enjoys spending her days with kids, laughing with them and seeing that moment where a student just “gets” something. There’s nothing like it! With so many holiday breaks and work days that end earlier than most, mom’s hours will work great for our future family. There are moments throughout the school year that get busy, but after a  decade there are systems in place that help the work/life balance. And when our child is old enough, we could go to school together! That has been a dream!

For a long time dad was a professional musician, but he has recently taken a job in the education technology industry to help provide solid, steady income and benefits for the family. He also still finds time to play music at a local church each week.

Our schedules allow for consistently-open evenings, yearly vacations, and good flexibility to allow for life’s little challenges along the way. We know things can get busy, but we’re always cognizant to prioritize our time together.

We are filled with joy just thinking about the prospect of having a child of our own. Thank you so much for reading this letter and for your consideration in helping us grow our family! :)