To Our Donor Family,

We want to start by saying how deeply grateful we are that you are considering this gift. No words can fully capture what you are offering, and we do not take it lightly for even a single moment. We have thought carefully about how to introduce ourselves to you, and we decided the most important thing we could do is simply be honest and open about who we are, where we have been, and the home we are so ready to fill with love.

We have been together for five years, and for four of those years we have been trying to become parents. Our journey has included multiple rounds of medically assisted fertility treatments, including IVF, and none of them have brought us the outcome we have been hoping and praying for. Each negative pregnancy test has left our hearts a little more broken. There is a particular kind of grief in that experience, one that is hard to describe to someone who has not lived it, the hope that builds, the waiting, and then the quiet devastation of a result that is not what you needed it to be. We have held each other through every one of those moments. After so many rounds with minimal results, we made the decision to stop putting our bodies and our hearts through another cycle and to pursue embryo donation instead. It felt like the right next step, a path forward that still leads us to the same place we have always been heading. We have so much love in our hearts to give to a child. We always have. We are so ready to give it.

We have always dreamed of having a daughter, and we already have her name. Emma. It belongs to a legacy of love, chosen after the woman who was the most fiercely protective and unconditionally loving presence in the adoptive mother's life. That name carries more tenderness and meaning than we can put into words, and we cannot wait to pass it on.

We are a married couple, together for five years and married for two. If our wedding says anything about who we are as a couple, it says everything: we got married in Iceland on Leap Day, under the northern lights. We did not want ordinary. We wanted something we would talk about for the rest of our lives, something that felt like us. That spirit lives in everything we do together, from the big moments to the quiet Saturday nights cooking dinner and painting flower pots at the kitchen table.

At our core, we are gentle, kind people who show up for the people we love. We are also endlessly curious about the world, and one of our most cherished values as a married couple is exploring it together. We take at least one international trip a year because we believe that seeing how other people live, eat, and celebrate makes us better humans. In our home we have a pin map of all the places we have traveled and all the places we still want to go. The legend has four categories: her adventures, his adventures, our adventures together, and one section that has not gotten a pin yet. That section is labeled family adventures. We are so ready to place that first pin. Last year we were snorkeling in Bermuda around sunken ships, surrounded by families, watching children jump off a pirate plank with life jackets on while their parents cheered from the water. We looked at each other without saying a word. We both felt it. That is the life we are building toward.

Weekends find us at the beach building sandcastles, catching sunrises on trails, wandering through farmers markets and trying something new, or tending to what started as one indoor vegetable garden and quietly became two because we bought far too many seedlings. Our home is full of plants in fun planters we have collected over time, because living things make a space feel warm and alive. It is also clean, tidy, and calm. We want Emma to grow up in a home that feels safe and cared for in every sense of the word. We have said to each other dozens of times, standing at the water or on a mountaintop, "I cannot wait until our daughter is here with us." We mean it every single time.

We are, in the best possible way, total opposites. The adoptive Mom is a Clinic Director at a behavioral health practice and works as a trauma therapist. She is type A through and through, someone who loves lists, predictability, and a well organized plan. She is a morning person with boundless energy. By 6am on a Saturday she is confidently singing the wrong lyrics to songs, dancing in the kitchen, or on her way to the gym. She loves a challenge and throws herself into new things with full enthusiasm. She is also the person who sends handwritten letters to friends out of nowhere just to tell them something good about themselves, who leaves little notes of kindness around the house, who remembers what matters to people and shows up for it. Her hobbies include photography, Dungeons and Dragons, playing pool, and hiking.

The adoptive Dad is an engineer, and is the calm to her energy in every way. He is relaxed, deeply creative, and the kind of person who would give you the shirt off his back without a second thought. He is a fixer in every sense of the word. If something in our home needs to be built or repaired, he has already sketched it out in his head and is halfway through making it beautifully before most people would have even started. He is a great listener, more reserved in groups but steady, present, and deeply caring in all the ways that matter most. His hobbies are playing pool, building Lego sets, and doing puzzle boxes.

Together we balance each other in ways we are still grateful for every day. We communicate openly, divide responsibilities based on what each of us does best, and show up fully to our life together. She does all the laundry. He does all the dishes. We both cook, both clean, and both manage our finances as equal partners. Cooking is something we genuinely love doing together. We prioritize healthy meals made with fresh ingredients, and we have collected an array of fun and silly cooking utensils over the years that have a way of making even a simple weeknight dinner feel like an event. Modeling that kind of balance and equality for Emma from the very beginning is something we feel strongly about. We want her to grow up seeing what a healthy, loving relationship actually looks like.

Our traditions are simple and intentional. Every Christmas Eve we bake something new together, something neither of us has made before, just the two of us making a mess and laughing about it. Once a month on a Sunday we make gluten free blueberry and banana pancakes with whipped cream and blueberry sauce and simply enjoy the morning together. We always travel on our birthdays, sometimes overnight, sometimes longer, because we believe that birthdays deserve experiences and memories more than they deserve things wrapped in paper. We plan to carry every one of these traditions forward when Emma is here.

At Christmas we give each other experiences rather than gifts: a Broadway show, a pottery class, a concert, something we can do together and carry with us. We want Emma to grow up understanding that the best gifts are the ones you live inside. The people in our lives share these values. A typical gathering at our home looks like board games on the table, seltzer and taco dip, music trivia, or heading out to try a new restaurant. Everyone in our circle is someone we trust completely and would be glad to have our daughter know. We are intentional about the people we keep close, because we believe that safety, connection, and goodness in your community matter deeply.

We also have three cats, Toby, Addy, and Izzy. Izzy has cerebellar hyperplasia and needs a little extra care and patience, which we give her without hesitation. Each of our cats has a completely different personality and their own way of showing affection, and we love all three of them fiercely. They are part of our family, and they will be part of Emma's too.

When Emma arrives, our life will shift in all the ways we have been dreaming about for years. Her nursery will be Dr. Seuss themed, because we believe childhood should be whimsical and full of wonder. Weekends will be spent outside, at the beach, on trails, at markets, and anywhere the world is happening and she can be part of it. Weekday evenings will be for cooking together, playing, reading, and helping her with whatever she needs to thrive. She will spend holidays with family a few hours away, so she grows up rooted in that love and connection as well.

As she grows, we hope to give her a well rounded childhood. We would love for her to play a sport or two and to learn an instrument, ideally the cello or the piano. We want her in activities and clubs where she can build real friendships with kind and trustworthy peers, because surrounding ourselves and our family with safe, positive people is one of our deepest values. We will teach her that the people who love you should make your life better, and we will show her what that looks like every day.

We know that what you are considering is one of the most profound and selfless acts a person can offer another. We have read about families like yours, thought about this moment, and hoped that when it came we would find the right words. The truth is, there are none big enough. What we can offer instead is this: a promise. Emma will never wonder if she is loved. She will grow up in a home full of warmth, laughter, adventure, and intention. She will be celebrated on ordinary Tuesdays and extraordinary leap days alike. She will know that the world is wide and beautiful and worth exploring, and that no matter where life takes her, she always has a safe and steady place to land. We will spend every day making sure of it. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for considering us. It means more than we will ever be able to say.

There is so much love in our hearts, and we are so grateful for the chance to share it.