Adoption has been on our hearts for nearly 7 years now-- well before we even had biological children. Adoption and foster care ministry are huge in our church, and I still remember the first Sunday we discussed adoption. As I was listening to the sermon, I could feel God working on my heart and I looked to my husband to see if he was feeling the same. I could see his heart moving in the same way. We discussed it later and agreed that we felt the Lord was going to add to our family through adoption one day. This call to adopt was confirmed after I had some pregnancy and delivery complications with my second child. The delivery was scary for me and for my baby. I am thankful it all worked out, but it was certainly a process. After delivery, I knew this was God’s way of bringing us back to adoption and ensuring we answer His call. When we started exploring adoption, God led us to embryo adoption as we believe embryos are already lives made in the image of God. When we first shared with our friends, without us even asking for surrogate volunteers, a friend immediately interrupted and asked if she could be the surrogate because she'd would be "absolutely honored to help us grow our family in this way."

We believe scripture is clear: if you have the means, you should adopt. We believe that includes financial means, emotional means, spiritual means, as well as community support. We are unbelievably blessed to have each of those. We know that we can financially provide for another child. We know we have the capacity in our minds and hearts to love and care for another child—and we know we will love our adopted child in the same way we love our biological children. We have worked for years to strengthen our spiritual lives and are so blessed to have a wonderful church family around us. We live in the same town as our children’s grandparents, and this is huge as well. The grandparents have not missed a single game or practice. They’ve attended every grandparent’s day or school event. And when we told them we would like to adopt, their eyes lit up and they literally jumped for joy. The reaction was the same from our friends and church family! They cannot wait to support our family as we expand. We already have friends fighting over who gets to come see the baby first.

We also know our children would be the best adoptive brothers! Our oldest is deeply compassionate and our youngest loves big! We have discussed adoption with them, and even though the baby does not fully understand what we are saying, we know they are excited to add another sibling. Our oldest understands adoption more due to his age and because we recently adopted a 3-legged dog from our local shelter. He was so moved to bring her into our home and get to love her. We explained adoption would be bringing a child made from other parents into our home to love and care for them, and he was excited to get this special chance. We know as soon as we tell him we are officially adopting, all of his teachers, friends, classmates, and people he sees at a restaurant will learn all about his new baby.

As a family, we love spending time together. We both work at a faith-based institution, so we have flexible days and very agreeable work schedules. I pick up my children at 3 every day and spend the rest of the evening with them until bedtime. We both get every holiday off, and I spend every summer at home with my kids as well. When home, we spend an enormous amount of time outdoors. The kids love playing on our playset or going for walks. We regularly eat dinner outside and spend time at various parks. We have a tradition of doing “pizza Friday” every Friday where we eat pizza, play games, and then have a sleepover together in the big room. We will start more camping traditions this summer and have more sleepovers and fun nights together. Once the baby is here, we will both take leave to welcome them into our home. From there, the grandmother will keep the baby at her house on the days I have to teach. Once the baby is a year old, we have a daycare ready to open a spot for him/her until they are old enough to join his/her siblings at traditional school.

It is important you know we are committed to honoring your role in our child’s life and will speak of you fondly. We want our child to know they have biological parents who love him/her so much they wanted to make sure he/she had a chance at life and allowed us to give that chance! We have already started praying for this baby and for you. Thank you for the privilege of a lifetime getting to adopt your baby.