Thomas and Rebecca

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From Us to You

Dear Friend,

Your child has been wonderfully made by God and we would be overjoyed to have the honor of being able to see him or her grow up into a funny, strong, and kind man or woman.

We are Tom and Becca and we have been happily married since 2019.  We live in the perfect home to raise a child in a diverse city with our cat, Garfield.  Yes, just like the orange cartoon cat named Garfield.  We have a close-knit and very supportive family as well as an amazing community of friends through our local church who can’t wait to welcome your baby.  We are an interracial couple-Tom is of Indian descent and Becca is Dutch(ish)-and we also have a lot in common with our faith in Jesus.

It has been our desire to become parents for some time now and unfortunately due to unexplained infertility becoming parents just hasn’t happened to us.  While this has been very painful, we continue to put our trust in God’s hands and have prayed for God to redirect our steps.  Through our prayers and the prayers of many friends and family members, we believe adoption is God’s path for us to become parents, and why we are here today, eager to join you on this journey to provide the best life possible for your child, whom we all already love with all that we are.

Life with us for your son or daughter would be filled with stories being read to them (Becca loves books), songs being played and sung to them (Tom plays lots of instruments), and lots of play dates with friends nearby. Your child will have 4 doting grandparents who are extremely excited to become grandparents for the first time and who will teach your baby about gardening, cooking, crafts, and even construction. Your child will also have an aunt who will be very distracted from her studies while completing grad school because she can’t get enough snuggle time with your child. We will teach your child from an early age how special they are, how much they are loved by us and by God, how much we prayed for them, and how beautifully God answered our prayers for them to become a part of our family. Your child will also be immediately welcomed into a vibrant and diverse church family who will take care of them like he or she was their own as parents to your child, we will pray for them every day, always put them first, and love them with everything we have.

Thank you for walking with us this far and we are excited to get to know you more.

All of our love and prayers

Tom and Becca

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Why We are Choosing to Adopt

When we first got engaged, we talked about having a family and we envisioned a bubbly household of children that were ours biologically and ours through adoption.   However, we were both aware that having children isn’t something you can really plan on. Tom’s parents went through several miscarriages before becoming conceiving him and Rebecca’s parents tried to have kids for 17 years before they were able to get pregnant. So, we entered marriage aware that what we envisioned would take a back seat to whatever God had planned for us, as His plans are always so much better than what we even envision for ourselves.  For several years we haven’t been able to conceive biologically yet we’ve felt an increasing desire to become parents.  That’s why we are here—God has led us to become parents through adoption. We want to say up front that an adopted child is not a “plan b” for us or a holdover for a “real child” that might come one day biologically. We believe that God’s plans for us are absolutely perfect and if His plan involves becoming the parents of your child, then your baby is the absolute most perfect baby for our family. Because of that, we are so excited to see what God will do through the Miracle of adoption.

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About Becca, by Tom

Rebecca introduced me to the meaning of kindness. She is very caring towards me, our families, friends, and even our cat. Over the last year, I watched her teach little kids in our church Sunday school with lots of patience to help them understand structure and truthfulness. Another way Rebecca communicates love is by baking – she bakes very yummy treats! Rebecca is also very wise. I often take her counsel when I face difficult problems at work or in our family life. She is excellent at organizing our house, and even volunteers in our neighborhood group as the recording secretary. She is quite thoughtful and always determined to take the best care of the people around her.

Rebecca and I (Tom) met at church in 2017. I was crushing on her but was not sure how she felt about me. On top of that, we had the same friend group and church family so I was way too nervous to rock the boat. It took me over a year to work up my courage and “lob a question” to ask her out to coffee. We went on a few dates and it quickly became apparent that we enjoyed spending time together. A year and a half later we were married. I thank God for her every day and am truly blessed to have her as my soulmate!

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About Tom, by Becca

Tom is one of the hardest-working, consistent, and principled people you’ll ever meet. Once Tom commits to something, you can count on it being done. He is a pretty simple person (all he needs to have a good day is a cup of chai and time to read his Bible), but the things he loves he will stick to no matter what. Tom is definitely the foundation of the family. His mood is rarely up or down. In good days and hard days, fun times and hard times, you can count on Tom to be exactly the same and to approach any situation thoughtfully and carefully. If you choose Tom to be your child’s adoptive father, I can promise you that your child will have a loyal friend and sacrificial counselor for the rest of their life. Whenever we babysit together, I always find Tom reading the kid’s stories or patiently explaining how something works and answering “why” questions for the 56,351st time.

I fell in love with Tom slowly over a period of two years. For the first year, we were just friends who spent a lot of time together with mutual friends from church. Right away I noticed his kind eyes and warm smile and how intentional he was about making people feel welcome. After a year, I thought I had been forever “friend-zoned” but then out of nowhere he called me and asked for a date! We got coffee the next week and then kept dating from there. I saw that he was faithful, kind, and honest. We introduced each other to our families and almost one year to the day from our first date, we were engaged! We both wanted a short engagement, so we got married 4 months later on my grandparent’s anniversary (they were married for 60 years!).

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Lifestyle

This was the paragraph that took us the longest to write – mostly because we didn’t want to sound boring! But alas, we live a fairly quiet lifestyle. Right now both of us work full time Monday-Friday. Tom does business strategy for a local energy company. He works from home two days per week and commutes one hour each way the other three days. Rebecca does web design and user experience for a building materials manufacturer and works from home all five days per week. In the evenings, Rebecca usually makes dinner and Tom will do some yardwork (when he’s not commuting home). After dinner, we either play a board game together, catch up with friends, or Tom watches sports while Rebecca “watches too” (mainly does a crossword puzzle).

On Saturdays, we work together on yard work, home upkeep, and figuring out groceries. We usually catch up with a few friends for dinner or coffee. Sundays we go to church where one or both of us is usually serving – Rebecca on the greeting team or in the nursery; and Tom as a worship leader or in the sound booth. After church, we sometimes get lunch with friends or try to do a date night together before the week starts again. We’re usually traveling to visit Tom’s parents, and Rebecca’s parents, or just getting out into nature one weekend every few months. Sometimes Tom’s sister will come visit for the weekend since she’s in college a few hours away. Tom also plays soccer and/or basketball when he can since it’s one of his favorite ways to get exercise. Rebecca’s favorite hobby is reading, so when she gets the chance, she’ll curl up on the couch or on our balcony to read.

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Our Cat, Garfield

Our profile wouldn’t be complete without mentioning our cat – Garfield. While Rebecca always grew up with cats, Tom never had a pet so it was unclear if we would be a pet family after marriage. But when we moved to our house, there was this stray cat who kept coming around. At first, we kind of ignored him. But he was so friendly that he gradually worked his way into our hearts. One day, he just came inside and made himself at home and we thought – “well, why not!” Since then he’s been part of the family for about 2 years.

Garfield spends most of the day sleeping and grooming himself (he’s just a tad bit vain). He’s extremely friendly and always wants to be in the center of the action. He’s very patient with small kids and usually lets them get a couple pets/tail pulls in before moving to higher ground. His hobbies involve chasing aluminum foil balls, looking out the windows, and bringing us “gifts” – usually pulling one of our socks out of the laundry basket and then bringing it downstairs with lots of meowing. Garfield’s one rule is that we MUST acknowledge when he brings a gift by saying “thank you, kitty” – otherwise he might lightly nibble on our toes until we pet him. He’s also a very good alarm clock. If one of us tries to work past dinnertime, we can count on a visit from Garfield to remind us that it’s time to stop working and get him his dinner.

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Home & Neighborhood

We live in a historic home in one of our city’s historic neighborhoods. It’s a brick house with hardwood floors, plaster walls, and historic wood windows. Recently, we’ve been updating all the bathrooms and kitchen so – while the house is historic – it has modern appliances/showers/etc. The previous homeowners planted some roses in the backyard and we’ve been slowly adding to it, so we have a nice flower garden (and some vegetables too!) in our backyard and pretty purple ivy that covers our front porch. In terms of people, we live in a pretty diverse neighborhood that’s primarily African-American, but becoming more of a melting pot every year. Our house is one block away from a neighborhood park and the neighborhood association (Rebecca is part of the leadership team) puts on free events, like Jazz in the Park, Praise in the Park, Juneteenth celebrations, etc. One reason we wanted to live where we do is because the community still has a “neighborly” feel – people sitting on their front porches and chatting as you walk by and neighbors looking out for each other. We also have at least 10 good friends who live less than 5 minutes away, so it’s nice to not feel “alone” in a big city (and Baby would have TONS of playmates nearby!)

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Our Families & Friends

We both have amazing families that we get along well with (and who get along with each other!). We are blessed to be able to say that, truly, we’ve never had any “in-law” drama or been at odds with each others’ families. Being a racially mixed couple, we had some uncertainties when we were dating about how our parents would react to us dating someone of a different race. But our parents quickly saw the character of the person their child was dating and welcomed us with open arms. Because we all share the same faith, that has served as a foundation for us to build relationships with each other— despite differences in culture. We regularly get together with our parents and have started a tradition of doing a one-weekend getaway each summer where both sets of in-laws, our sister, and us get an AirBnB and stay together for a few days. When Rebecca’s dad was in the hospital, Tom’s parents drove multiple hours to come see him and encourage Rebecca’s mom. Like we said, they’re amazing!

We also have a wonderful friend group through our local church — some friendships we’ve had for over 8 years! One of the main reasons we live where we do is because we have so many close friends who live just a few minutes away and who are a huge support network for us. They’ve brought us meals when needed, let us borrow tools, given us places to sleep when our power was out, prayed for us, and so much more. All of our friends have been huge encouragements to us as we’ve considered adoption. Your baby will never be short of babysitters and lots of loving uncles and aunties who will welcome them into their families as well.

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Family Traditions

We have a few family traditions – mostly around holidays! For Thanksgiving, we try to get both extended families together for the fairly traditional American Thanksgiving meal – turkey, potatoes, stuffing, pie, etc. At Christmas, we travel to both in-law’s homes for a few days and exchange gifts, sing carols, and attend Christmas Eve services. Rebecca’s mom likes making “nativi-trees” for the kids in her life – mini Christmas trees with an ornament each day for the 25 days leading up to Christmas that tells the Christmas story. As we think about having a son or daughter, we are so excited to do the nativi-tree with them, attend church together, sing Christmas songs, bake Christmas cookies, and fill their stocking (and pretty much the whole Christmas tree) with presents.

For Easter, we make a traditional Indian dish from Kerala (Kerala is the part of India where Tom’s family is from) called appam. This was the first year we made it ourselves and it was more complex than we thought – thankfully Tom’s parents were available for a FaceTime assist!

We also try to go to India to visit Tom’s family every 2-3 years. Most of Tom’s extended family and his two grandmothers still live in India, so whenever we go it’s like having an 8-day family reunion. Tom has a large family on his dad’s side, with lots of cousins in the 18-30 years old age range. Whenever we get together, there’s lots of food, laughter, and general shenanigans. If we were to adopt Baby, he or she would be the first baby in the next generation on Tom’s dad’s side of the family and only the second on Tom’s mom’s side — so they would most definitely get all the attention and be spoiled by all their aunties, uncles, cousins, and ammachis (grandmothers) in India!

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Our Faith

Our faith is a huge part of our lives — and one of the biggest reasons we are pursuing adoption! We were both raised in Christian homes and, while we understood what the Bible taught from a young age, we both became more serious about our faith in college. That’s when God’s love for us become real and changed how we spent our time and what we found important. We both became really involved in ministries on campus and made commitments to serve Jesus wherever he would lead. Eventually, both of us came to the same city and the same church – which is where we met and fell in love with each other. Now our church family is truly our family and, through our church, we have been encouraged to pursue adoption.

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Racial & Cultural Diversity

Coming from different racial and cultural backgrounds ourselves, we have experienced first-hand the challenges — but also the amazing joys — of being a diverse family. Tom was born in India, where he lived until he was 8 years old. When he moved to the United States, he faced questions around cultural identity and experienced what it was like to be different than everyone else. Tom understands how lonely that can be and the importance of being able to see past outward differences and find common ground with others.

Rebecca was raised in a rural part of America where pretty much everyone looked like her. In college, however, she met an African-American student who quickly became a close friend. After graduating, they moved together to a large city that was predominantly African-American and served in a community that was predominantly Hispanic. This taught Rebecca a lot about how people’s experiences can be very different based on race.

Now, we are both part of a church in that same city, where people from all walks of life worship and do life together. This has given us opportunities to acknowledge and celebrate what makes us different, but also to see that all people are made by God and have the same desire to love and be loved. If we have the blessing of being able to raise a child from a different ethnicity than us, we are committed to acknowledging that distinction and celebrating the differences — while also emphasizing what makes us the same. They will be our son or daughter, made perfectly by a perfect God, who just happens to be of a different ethnicity from us.

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Our Relationship with You

We are open to any type of relationship that you would prefer but are hoping that we can get to know you and tell your children about you as they grow up. We don’t presume to know your situation, but we can imagine that there have been a few easy decisions in your journey towards adoption. However, your choice to give your baby life and to give us the opportunity to have a life with your child is a gift that blows us away. Whatever the circumstances, this decision took courage and was a sacrifice for you in probably more ways than we can imagine. We will think of you whenever we celebrate a birthday, take a family photo, or just laugh with our child and our thoughts toward you will be of immense gratitude and blessing. We will always be honest with him or her about their adoption and we expect that they will have questions – especially as they get older. We would love to tell them about you – what you are like, how much they look like you, about where they come from. We are open to sharing photos and, as the child / you are comfortable, allowing space for you to get to know each other. However, we want to respect your wishes in terms of privacy and whatever time you may need before connecting again. So, we will take our cues from you, but are definitely hoping we can get to know each other and be part of each other’s lives in some way!

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Our Promise to You

While there’s a lot we can not predict or control about the future if we have the opportunity to be parents to your baby, here are a few things we can promise you:

• Your child will have a huge fan club – There is a whole community of people in our city and in our families here and around the world who are waiting to meet and love your baby. He or she has future babysitters, playmates, and best friends waiting to get to know them and become part of their lives forever.
• We will protect and provide for your child with our lives – We can’t promise things out of our control, but we can promise that we will gladly give our lives to keep your baby safe and will do everything we can to make sure all their needs (and most of their wants) are met. We promise to take care of them when they are sick, comfort them when they are sad, and do what we can to help them fulfill God’s plan for their lives.
• We will love your child unconditionally –  Your baby be a part of our family, and will be deeply loved— forever and always!