Michael and Christina

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From Us to You

Dear Expectant Mom,

We are so grateful that you would consider us to care for and love your baby for the remainder of our lives. You are one strong mama to be open to considering adoption to provide your baby with the bright future you dream of for them. Our family cannot wait to meet your little one and welcome them into our lives. We, along with our entire extended family, will love your baby unconditionally. We will raise your little one to be kind, strong, respectful, and caring.

We live in a quiet neighborhood near a huge park, playground, and elementary school. Our four-year-old son, Ethan loves playing outside with the neighborhood kids, doing chalk art, running through the sprinklers, making mud pies, or riding around on scooters. We like to spend our time playing and laughing. On the weekends, we like to visit the “train park” where we can ride around the park, feed the ducks, and ride the ponies. Our favorite place to vacation is San Diego – so we can go to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, or Legoland. We also love to eat breakfast in bed and hang out at the pool when we go down to visit.

We have been on a roller coaster of a fertility journey for the past six years. We’ve had several failed IVF attempts, a late-term pregnancy loss, and other pregnancy complications. Christina’s physicians have told her it is no longer recommended or safe for her to attempt carrying a child to term. Before we began our IVF journey, we talked at length about all the possible options we had to grow our family. We decided that genetics was not the only thing that equated to family and that we were both open to adoption.

You will likely think of your baby as the years pass, and we would love to share everything we know about you with them. We will most definitely tell your baby that you are a brave and strong woman who always loved them and will always love them. We would love to have an open relationship that has healthy boundaries that we all agree on. We will send photos as often as you’d like. If at some point in the future, you would like to meet your child, we would welcome that so your baby knew they were loved by so many people.

We want to say “thank you” over and over for considering this choice, “thank you” for being open to adoption, “thank you” for helping our dream become a reality. There are not enough proper words to express our gratitude or our admiration of you for allowing us to love and care for your baby.

Thank you,
Michael and Christina

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About Us

We met in 2005 as roommates on Craigslist. Christina used to joke that he was Ross from “Friends” because she thought he looked like David Schwimmer, and she was Rachel because she had that flipped out bob haircut at one point. We didn’t know it at the time, but we both secretly felt the same spark that would lead us eventually to marriage. While we got to know each other, we loved watching Red Sox games together, going for runs on the beach, and staying up late to talk on the patio. We were friends for such a long time before we got married, that the relationship felt easy. Having that base was important because we knew how to support one another and be emotionally invested before it became romantic.

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Why We Are Choosing to Adopt

Natural fertility did not come easy to us. We struggled to get pregnant with our son Ethan and struggled again with IVF and a late-term pregnancy loss. After that devastating loss, Christina was told she had too many pregnancy risk factors and should consider other methods of growing our family. We have both always wanted to have more kids, so it was a huge blow to us. We have had a nagging feeling for quite some time that our family is not complete. Adoption was an easy choice for us, partly because Michael’s niece is adopted. Her addition to our family made it clear to us that genetics is not the most important thing. She was immediately embraced, loved, and welcomed into our family with open arms. Although we have a biological child, our love for your child would be the same. Your baby would be our family, always.

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About Christina

When I met my wife Christina, I had a sense that she would become my best friend and the one I would want to spend the rest of my life with. It soon became apparent that not only was she physically beautiful, but she had an equal inner beauty that I find to be very contagious. She is the most compassionate and generous person that I have personally known.

Her parenting style has helped me grow so much as a parent. Letting children express themselves instead of instructing them how to feel opened my eyes and has helped make me a better dad. Christina’s patience and attention to detail have helped Ethan progress emotionally faster than I ever thought possible, he has the ability to talk about his feelings in a mature way, and he’s only 4. My wife is not only the love of my life but also the person I have the most respect for.

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About Michael

I have known Michael for fifteen years. I thought I had him pegged and knew everything about him immediately, but he is constantly surprising me. I love the amazing man he has been evolving into. He always puts his family first and has our best interest at heart. For example, when we go to the beach, he packs the car to the brim for the three of us. It makes me laugh thinking we are lugging half the house with us – but he wants to ensure we have shade to protect us, chairs to be comfortable, and sand toys to share with all the other kids so we can have a fun day full of building sand creations. He does everything without complaint because it is important to him that we are taken care of. After I met Michael’s dad, I could see he got his devotion to family from him. Although he passed away last year, I know Norm is thrilled to know that Michael has grown into an incredible husband and father.

One of the things I love most about Michael is his ability to keep me balanced. He has a way of calming me down when I begin to get overwhelmed. He helps me to see the lighter side of things in life and reminds me to laugh at those things that are beyond my control. And if I can’t find a reason to laugh, he throws himself into full character to be silly and get a smile out of me.

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Our Lifestyle

We live a fairly low-key lifestyle. We like to stay home to enjoy each other’s time and avoid the hustle and bustle of having overbooked social calendars. A perfect weekend would include not having to worry about rushing to be anywhere in the morning, having a family breakfast together, building forts, maybe making it out to the pool or playground, and just playing at home. When we go out, it’s usually something kid-centric. We like to take our son to check out new parks/playgrounds, visit kid museums, go to theme parks like Legoland, Sea World, or San Diego Zoo, or just walk around Target to see what new toys they have.

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Home and Neighborhood

We live in a two-bedroom condo in a quiet neighborhood. It is stuffed to the brim with all the things to make it the fun house for the neighborhood kids to come hang out at – Legos, books, trucks, stuffed animals, blocks, art supplies, and most importantly, a pet hamster that our son named Master Cow. He’s feisty, likes to eat and sleep a lot, and hates running on his wheel. The one special party trick he has up his sleeve is he likes to hang from the top of the cage-like monkey bars and swing across the top. It’s the funniest thing we’ve ever seen. There are lots of kids in the neighborhood, so we love having play dates in front of the garages to do chalk art, have water fights, or ride scooters.

When your baby joins our family, Christina will sleep in the second bedroom with the baby until they have grown out of their bassinet. Then, we will have a crib set-up for them in the second bedroom. We hope to find a larger home to meet the needs of our growing family and have been actively searching for the right fit.

We live across the street from an elementary school and a large park with a playground, the latter of which we frequent. We love spending time at the park, meeting up with friends, and making new ones. Our favorite thing to do at the park is dig a huge hole that can turn into a spaceship, railroad station, construction site, you name it.

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Our Families and Friends

We both come from fairly small families. Michael’s family all still live in Maine, and we try to visit at least once a year. Michael is the youngest of four kids with three older sisters. He was always the “little king” in the family. Over the years, Michael has become uncle to two nieces and a nephew. One of his nieces is adopted, and she is excited to have someone to share that special bond with. Christina’s parents have been divorced since she was two, but she has never been without great adult role models. The older she got, the closer she got with her mom. When Christina became a mom herself, she grew an even deeper respect and love for her mom – realizing how difficult it was to raise two daughters as a single mom. Christina’s immediate family lives in California, so we all get together for family meals at least once a month. It’s so fun to get four generations together – her grandmother adores her two great-grandchildren. She asks Christina and her sister all the time when they are going to grow their families to give her more great-grandchildren to love on. We’ve built a small core group of close friends, centered mostly on the families of our son’s friends. Christina has lived in California most of her life and she has remained friends with the same girls she met in junior high school.

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Family Traditions

Christina is Korean, and one big thing we celebrate every year is the New Year. While traditionally, Koreans celebrate Lunar New Year, our family does the celebration on January 1. We get together for a brunch of rice cake soup, where the belief is the more rice cakes you eat, the more prosperous of a year you will have. Then we bow to our elders and offer them well wishes for a healthy New Year. It has been fun for Christina to see the celebration change over the years with the changing dynamics of the family; adding Michael (husband), Ethan (son), Blake (brother-in-law), and Rome (nephew).

Every Christmas Eve, the whole extended family in California spends the day at Christina’s aunt and uncle’s house. We have an early dinner, then open presents together. It’s fun to watch Christina’s grandma, as she gets the most excited out of everybody, and farts her way through opening gifts.

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Our Careers and Passions

Christina works full time as an Executive Property Manager and was previously a full-time Stay at Home parent for four and a half years. For the past two years during the pandemic, Michael took on the role of Stay at Home parent and recently returned to his career as a Footwear and Product Developer, an industry he had been a part of for twenty years. We both love all our jobs; Property Management, Developer, and Parent. We feel blessed that we had the opportunity to experience being both working parents and at home parents.

Christina fell into her career as a Property Manager completely on accident. She had gone to school to study Psychology with the intent of becoming a Child Psychologist for a low-income school district that was predominantly filled with Spanish speakers. It is important to her to support children, especially in overwhelmed school districts. She learned quickly that school districts don’t spend resources on more than one psychologist per district, and they rely heavily on interns and volunteers to fill this gap. Without a prospect for a job, Christina took an office job as an administrative assistant at a property management company and ended up staying there for ten years before taking a break to have Ethan. She loved being able to learn about so many different aspects of the real estate world and has had fun in expanding her role at the same company.

Michael has been a Footwear Developer for twenty plus years, he loves being in a creative environment, surrounded by like-minded people. He started his career working at a factory in China, picking up some conversational Mandarin while he lived there. He was able to learn about the process of making shoes straight from the source, which has proved invaluable to him in his current role. Because of the pandemic, his employer has extended a flexible work environment, and he is able to work remote for most of the week. This allows him to do all the school drop-offs and pick-ups, so Ethan continues to get daily support and engagement from us when he is not at school. Michael thoroughly enjoyed the two years he stayed home with Ethan and is glad to be able to continue being a huge part of his development.

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Our Vacations

We usually spend one to two weeks a year visiting Michael’s family in Maine. While there, we love spending time outdoors and exploring attractions that we don’t have the opportunity to experience in California. A few favorites include apple picking, visiting a working dairy farm, and boating on the many lakes. During our last trip, our favorite thing was to catch and catalog all the bugs at Michael’s parents’ house in the yard. Ethan had never seen a grasshopper or cricket until this year.

We also love doing short three- or four-day staycations in California. Our favorite place to go is the San Diego/Carlsbad area so we can visit Legoland, Sea World, and the San Diego Zoo. We watch tons of TV and movies, eat out (so no one has to do dishes), and stay up late giggling.

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Racial & Cultural Diversity

We are a bi-racial couple and would be welcoming to any new addition to the family, regardless of ethnic background. Michael’s niece is Taiwanese and her adopted parents are both Caucasian. Christina’s brother-in-law is also Caucasian. We have gay and lesbian family members that we adore. Diversity is one of the things we love about our family.

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What We Will Teach Our Children

We will teach our children to be kind. It seems like such a small and simple idea – but one we feel is important, especially in the current political climate. Being kind is inclusive of accepting others for who they are, helping those around us in whatever ways we are able – small or large, and being empathetic to those that are struggling and hurting around us. We work on doing age-appropriate things to model this with our 4-year-old son. At least once a month, we go through and he chooses toys and books that he no longer plays with to donate to other families. We have family members with Alzheimer’s and friends with Down Syndrome that we treat the same as anyone else in our lives.

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What We Will Share

We will tell your child that their birth mother was a special angel who carried them in her belly and chose for us to become a loving family. As they grow older, we are happy to share with them whatever age-appropriate details they’d like to know and that you are comfortable with.

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Our Promise to You

We promise to love your baby unconditionally for their entire life. To be a safe place where they can laugh, cry, scream, and yell. We will encourage their creativity and support their passions. We are thankful to you more than words can describe that you are considering our family for your baby. We hope that you find a glimmer of comfort in knowing how much we will love your baby.