Derek and Anna

>

<

From Us to You

Dearest Expectant Mother,

How do you choose a family through photos and letters? We can’t imagine the magnitude and weight of this difficult decision for you.  What we do know is that it takes incredible selfless, strength, courage, and love to choose adoption for your unborn baby.  We know this will be one of the hardest sacrificial decisions you will have to make.

Even from our youth, we both have desired to raise children; however, we are not able to have biological children of our own.  Anna had Leukemia (bone-marrow cancer) in her late teenage years, and the ablative chemotherapy that was necessary for her complete cure took out the possibility to conceive on our own through natural means.  However, the desire to have another child still remains and the desire to adopt again and provide a loving family is felt immensely by us both.

Should you entrust us with your baby, he or she will be well cared for. So much love will be devoted to your child, not by just the two of us, but by our son as well.

We both come from large families and are very family oriented.  We so look forward to raising our children near grandparents and lots of uncles and aunties that will spoil your baby a lot! Our first child is already reaping the rewards of being spoiled and well loved by our families. We love living a pretty active lifestyle with fun activities together, as well as with family and friends. We enjoy hiking, playing tennis (though we are super bad at it), taking road trips, and working on DIY home projects together. We also love having chill days by playing games, reading books, or watching movies.

Thank you for choosing life! Thank you for considering us to love and care for your child. It is our desire to raise a child, no matter what race or ethnicity, to truly know and understand their heritage. They will grow up knowing that all peoples are precious and should be loved and valued. Our city and community are very racially diverse, as is our family. We both have close work relationships and friendships with different races of people as well as having a brother and sister-in-law and nieces and nephews of different races and ethnicities. We love them so much and couldn’t imagine life without them. We are excited to raise your child to love diversity!

We are praying for your peace, comfort, and strength during this time.

Derek & Anna

Follow us on Instagram to see our latest family adventures!

>

<

Why We are Choosing to Adopt

We are pursuing adoption again with the hope of bringing another little blessing to our family and would LOVE for our children to be close in age. We think our son would do great with a sibling. He has cousins and little play mates that he does so well with, and we love seeing the joy he has when he is with other kids and babies.  We could not be more grateful for the opportunity to share our love and life with your child and with you.

>

<

Our Relationship with Our Son's Birth Mama

We began our adoption journey in 2020. It was a crazy year for everyone, but man are we thankful for having started the adoption process! In October of 2020, we were chosen by an amazing and brave woman. She has three other kids, two being older teens and a 6-year-old, but she made the difficult and courageous choice to create an adoption plan for her coming baby. When we were told we had been chosen, it was a moment filled with so much joy and so much emotion! It felt surreal. We had our initial call with her that went well and continued texting with her for the next few days. We knew by the end of the phone conversation and through texts that she had carefully thought out her decision with wisdom and love for the little one growing in her. The love she had for her child was evident. We felt so honored to have been picked to care for and raise her son.

To this day, we text with her and share photos and videos through text and an online photo sharing app that is for her alone. At this time, she has chosen to leave it up to our son when he is older to meet her and his siblings and we respect her wishes. We show our son the photos of his birth mama holding him in the hospital and from when we met up with her to say goodbye. Even though our son is still little and doesn’t understand, we talk to him about his story, how much he is loved by all of us, and how much his birth mama loves him in making this choice of adoption.

We understand every birth mother is different and our relationship with you will not be the same as our relationship with our son’s birth mother. We want you to know that we will share the same honor of telling your child his or her story of how much you love and sacrificed for them. We will tell them that the adoption process was done with love for them, and that your choice was made with grace and care. We will always talk about you with love and respect and they will know their story is special to them.

>

<

About Anna, by Derek

Anna is an incredibly industrious woman with an amazingly loving heart. She has an easy going personality with a smidge of silly fun. Anna loves to make others laugh. She thrives by showing love to all those she is around, helping out wherever she is needed, and sharing her own journey if it can be an encouragement to someone. She is an incredible homemaker, and the best cook/baker I know! She has had a strong desire to be a mom since she was a young girl, so the news that she would never be able to bear her own biological children was devastating, to say the least. However, adopting our son in 2020 and seeing Anna step into the role of motherhood has been an amazing thing to witness. She is an incredibly loving and tender mom, and I am so excited to see that love be poured out on another child as we seek to grow our little family. Anna is incredibly close to her family and loves spending time with her parents and many siblings. When we have days off together, Anna enjoys being active, driving to find a beach or lake for a fun water day, biking, and hiking. However, she also enjoys chill days where we stay home and watch a movie or play games.

Anna is an amazing, professional wedding photographer and is as talented as she is passionate about her work. Anna’s and my desire is for her to remain a stay-at-home mother and educator to our children, and I know that is a worthy goal she strives toward.

>

<

About Derek, by Anna

Where do I even start with Derek? He is one of the most loving, genuinely funny, and kind people I know. He is definitely the hardest worker I know! He is the fourth oldest of seven kids. He is driven, both academically and in business. He is super excited to share what he knows with our son as well as with any future children we may have. He enjoys many activities such as biking, tennis, sailing, reading books of all kinds, working in the garden (as well as helping others with theirs),  working on all sorts of house projects, tending to chickens, photography, and much more. He is a jack-of-all-trades in many areas of life. Derek knows how to work really hard but definitely prioritizes spending time with me, our son, extended family, and taking time to rest when needed. I have LOVED seeing him become a dad this last year. He was made for it. He is gentle, sweet and so in love with our little boy. I love watching him read to, play with, and teach our kiddo. He’s especially been enjoying taking all three of us fishing and camping this year. It’s so cute watching Derek hold our boy as he gets eggs from the chicken coop and talking to him excitedly about the chickens and how the eggs give us protein, or how the butterflies and bees fly and what they do for the earth and how God made it all. Derek has seriously stepped into his role as a father tremendously well and I know he will do the same with your child.

Derek and I love spending time with each other even if that means working on our properties doing projects, going to photoshoots together, or doing some sort of sporting activity. We like to make goals and work hard towards them. But we also love just having a quiet evening in watching a favorite show or playing a board game and eating food together. That hasn’t changed since adding to our family. In fact, it’s even more of a focus now.

>

<

Lifestyle

Adopting our son has been the best decision we have ever made. He has made our lives and our home so, so joyful and full.

Our home is always full of friends and family!  We love to be outdoors and have introduced this love to our son. We do lots of camping, go to the beach, hike, swim, and travel. We grow a lot of vegetables in our back yard and take pleasure in eating fresh produce for lunch and dinner that we get to grow in our own little oasis. We are very grateful for the life we have created together, and love that we get to share and do all of this with our son and can’t wait to share our life with another little one as we grow our family!

Anna is a stay-at-home parent, which is the long term plan we have for our children. Anna and our son like to spend their days reading books, playing with lots of toys, and going on long walks outside. There is also a park near our home where they meet up with other mommas and their kids. When Anna has a photoshoot that takes her away from the home for a couple of hours, Derek loves spending one on one time with our son. Derek gets three months of parental leave that we can space out, so we get to have him around quite a lot, which we love!

>

<

Our Leisure Time

The most important thing to us is spending time together as a family. So far this summer, we’ve been taking as many camping trips as possible and going to the lake to fish or swim. Sometimes, we just stay home and do house projects or relax. It usually depends on how our week went and what kind of quality time we need as a family.

We both share a love for travel that we can’t wait to pass down. Together, we’ve gone to London and Japan. Anna has also gone to Africa. We are excited to continue traveling with our children so they can also experience the magical moments of exploring the world. Some of our dream spots to visit are Italy, Ireland, and Scotland… along with many more places!

>

<

Our Home & Families

We live in a home with three bedrooms and one bath on a quiet street in the city. We have a nice sized, fenced backyard that’s perfect for children to play in. We live a close walking distance to a beautiful park with two large fields, awesome play equipment for all ages, a nice walking path, and a water fountain park that is great for hot summer days. We are also within walking distance of several coffee shops, donut shops (because that’s what’s really important ;-)) and the ferry.

We are extremely close to family, both by physical proximity and relationally. Anna’s family lives just over 1 mile away, and most of Derek’s family lives within the surrounding area as well. We spend a significant amount of time at her family’s house, whether to play games with her younger siblings, work on projects for her parents, or for Sunday dinner (which is a regular, weekly event). Your child will have lots of loving aunties, uncles, and grandparents to dote on them and who are all very supportive and excited for us to adopt. We look forward with great anticipation to the magic and wonder that another child will add to life as we partake in their experiences of imagination, discovery and, amazement! We think that our neighborhood, city, being close to family, and our church will make a great place for your child to grow up and enjoy a fun, active life.

>

<

Family Traditions

Our favorite holiday is Christmas, so of course, our favorite traditions are around that season. One of Anna’s favorite traditions is to go to the local Christmas tree farm that she grew up going to. We bundle up and then go look for the perfect tree. After we’ve picked out our tree, we take a family photo in front of it and then cut it down. At the checkout stand, there are hot cocoa and peppermint sticks. We always drink a cup as we finish buying the tree. Then, we head home and play all the old, classic Christmas songs while we decorate. It’s such a fun time being together as a family and making memories we will cherish for years to come. Another favorite Christmas tradition is going to nursing homes and singing Christmas carols with some of the people from our church.

During the summer, it is a tradition to go camping with family. It’s so much fun and we make lots of yummy food, including peach dump cake cobbler. We sit around the campfire and sing songs or play games and enjoy the quiet outdoors.

>

<

Racial & Cultural Diversity

We love the idea of not only sharing and exploring our children’s heritage with them, but exploring others’ backgrounds together as well. We have lived in Japan and on the Mexican border and have many friends who have different racial and cultural backgrounds. We get to enjoy and partake in this diversity of the community, and we will teach our children to love, respect, and appreciate others as well.

>

<

Our Promise to You

Our promise to you is to love your child unconditionally and to help your child know how special and one of a kind they are. We promise to teach them to love all people, no matter their circumstance, and to work hard, love God, and know that God loves them. We also promise to share their heritage and background with them. They will grow up knowing how much you love them and sacrificed for them.

Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to share a little about our lives with you. We hope that you feel like you’ve gotten to know us a little better. Thank you so much for considering us to raise your child! We pray you have a life filled with happiness and love!!