Hi! We are [His name] and [Her name]. We married in 2017, neither of us had been married before, so a little bit older than average at 40 and 41 at the time. We were both busy with career and other family up until then I guess and really just hadn't met the right person. I [Her name] was pre-med when I started college and got a degree in psychology, couldn't do a lot with it, ha! I then worked as a substitute teacher for a while and then I was offered a full time job teaching if I'd go back for my degree in Education, I decided I really wanted to work in health care and thinking I didn't have the grades to get into medical school, went back and got a degree in nursing. I enjoyed being a nurse but my desire to be a doctor, hadn't gone away. With better grades the second time around and being a little more older, and maybe bolder, I applied and ended up being accepted. I was able to move closer to home for residency and [His name] and I met my last year of residency and married a little over a year later. We wanted to have children and when we were unsuccessful after a year, we went to a fertility clinic. We were ultimately told due to problems both of us had, mainly because were were a little older, there was virtually no chance of becoming pregnant without IVF. We decided to to think about it for a couple months and make sure that we were ready both financially and emotionally ready for this process. By a miracle, during that time, we became pregnant with our son. He has been an amazing gift but we would love to have a second child. We did 2 IUI's after he was born that were unsuccessful and by that time, I was too old to expect IVF to be any more successful. We became foster parents and have had a couple short term placements but just don't feel that this will likely lead to adoption for us and so we considered adoption in all forms. When they suggested IVF to us initially, my biggest concern was creation of more embryos that I could have at my age and that thought stayed with me in some ways and has led us to embryo adoption.

Our day to day lives are probably a little less predictable than some. I am an Emergency Medicine Physician. I am 3/4 time, so usually only work 3 days a week but that can be days/afternoons or nights so flexibility is the name of the game. [His name] is a real estate agent, working with his dad so he works from home and has a lot of flexibility in how much work he takes on. Right now he's working on his degree in Forensic Accounting, also online. While the schedule is a little erratic at times, I have a lot of random weekdays off and also get at least 6 weeks/year off for vacation and by [His name] schedule also being flexible we are able to take 2-3 vacations a year and a lot of mini-vacations. We have 5 aces with 8 horses, 4 dogs, 8 chickens, and a cat. I show horses a few weekends a year. I grew up on a dairy farm and showed horses a lot as a kid/young adult so we have a lot of animals to care for too.

We have a lot of family in the area. [His name] has a sister who has 2 young kids. I have 3 brothers who have a total of 11 kids ranging in age from 1-22 and all live close so holidays are also a little chaotic but a lot of fun. We try to meet them frequently and so cousins are a big part of our lives too. My mom still lives on the family farm which we've had for 7 generations. [His name] parents also live close and our son loves to hike around our little farm or swim in the pool with Grandpa.