Jason and Liana

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From Us to You

Hello,

We are so pleased to “meet” you and are honored that you are considering us as possible parents for your baby. We cannot begin to understand what you are going through, and what a difficult decision this must be. We are in awe of your strength and bravery, and admire who you are as a person and as an expectant mother.

If you choose us to parent your baby, we can promise you that they will be loved unconditionally, respected for whomever they become, at every stage of their development, and will be cared for thoughtfully and intentionally. They will grow up in a loving home, surrounded by extended family and friends. They will be read to and sung to and held and cuddled. They will be listened to, their feelings will be acknowledged, and they will be comforted and reassured when they feel uncertain. They will have parents with a solid foundation, who love each other, and are deeply committed to one another.

If we are chosen to parent your baby, he or she will know where they came from. Their birth story and adoption story will be told to them with pride from the very beginning, so they always know the story of their birth, who you are, and how they became a part of our family. They will learn that they will always have two families, their family of origin and their family of experience.

We have always known that we wanted to be parents and chose to wait until we were as “ready” as possible. We wanted to be at a point in our lives where we could be present and available for the demands and commitment of parenthood. We wanted to wait until we were established in our careers, financially stable, and had a home with enough space in a community with a good support system. We agreed not to initiate the adoption process until we reached this point in our lives. We feel we have, and are ready to welcome your baby into our lives.

We would very much like you to be a part of our lives and a part of your baby’s life. We would like to share pictures and updates and to have open communication so your child will know you, and you will know them as they grow. We would love for regular visits to be part of an ongoing relationship between our families. This being said, we understand this may not feel comfortable for you, and will always respect your boundaries, and what is best for you, and your baby’s wellbeing.

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Why We're Choosing to Adopt

We have always wanted to be parents and have dreamed of building our family through adoption.  As you can see from our pictures, we are a big part of our family and friend’s children’s lives.  We adore our nephews, Maxwell (13), Teddy (12) and Magnus (5) in Buffalo, and Liana’s cousin’s kiddos here in Vermont, Ruby (13), Oksar (11), Aubrey (5), Abigail (2), Stanley (2) and Siobhan (7 months).  Stanley will be getting a baby sister this August.

We are very close with our friend’s kids, including going on vacations and celebrating holidays and birthdays together.  Here in Vermont we treasure our time with our friend’s Rita and David’s daughters, Ada (4) and Ruby (1), and our friend’s Molly and Lee’s son Morgan (2), and they will welcome another boy this July.  We visit our NYC friends and their children in the city, and they come to visit us in Vermont.  Our dear friend’s Sonny and Shubhra in Brooklyn have two boys, Ayaan (2) and Kiaan (3 months) and our friend’s Summer and Issouf in Harlem have Grady (10), Raye (5), and Graye (21 months).  Our friend’s Lacey and Matt in Queens have 2 year old Dylan, who will welcome baby brother Jordan in April.  Our friend’s Prithvi and Avanti in Manhattan have Neal (8) and Lya (3).

We went on vacation in Maine with Rita and Dave, and Ada always asks to go to “Gianna and Jason’s house.”  Ayaan calls Liana “auntie” in Cantonese.  We went on vacation in Cape Cod with Summer and Issouf, and were at the hospital when both Grady and Raye were born.  We went to India with Shubhra and Sonny for their wedding.

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About Liana, from Jason

Liana is the warmest, sweetest and most caring person that anyone is likely to meet. Every day her heart overflows with love for her family and friends, her cats, each bird and animal we can see through our windows, and basically everyone and everything. I’m excited to watch her become a mother as we start a family of our own, and very grateful to embark on this journey alongside her.

Liana is so funny and so friendly – she did improv comedy when we lived in NYC, and the first time I ever saw her she was smiling and waving to me, even before I knew who she was. We met through mutual friends so they were expecting me to arrive, but I didn’t expect to be greeted so enthusiastically by someone I had never seen before. We met that night in 2006 and the rest was history. Since then we’ve lived in 3 NYC apartments, spent a couple of years in London, recently bought a house and moved to Vermont and we are still going strong.

Liana is passionate about her career helping children and their families as a psychotherapist. She started her own business more than 10 years ago and has run a successful private practice since then, first in Brooklyn and now in Vermont. I think she would agree if I said that some of her favorite things include being active outdoors (hiking, camping, kayaking, swimming, cross-country skiing or snowshoeing!), being as cozy as possible when she’s not outdoors (especially in her PJs next to the fireplace when it’s cold), having pancakes on lazy weekend mornings, baking delicious bread and making our house smell amazing in the process, and most of all spending time with our little nephews who will never be more adored or more spoiled than they are by their Aunt Liana.

Liana is my best friend and she will absolutely be the world’s most incredible mom.

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About Jason, by Liana

Jason and I met when we were 23 years old and in graduate school. We have been together for 17 years, and we are celebrating 10 years of marriage this November. He has been my best friend since the beginning. Our life together has been a beautiful adventure and continues to be. We hope a baby will be our next chapter.

Jason is incredibly charming and friendly and everyone who meets him falls in love with him. He is the smartest person I know and never ceases to be intellectually curious. He’s always reading multiple books at the same time, on various topics, whatever he’s interested in at the moment (currently it’s a biography of Isaac Newton and something about Italian Renaissance painters!). He is a musician, and after studying trumpet in high school, has taught himself how to play the saxophone and the piano and is currently working on learning how to play the cello! He also has a natural instinct for languages and, despite only formally studying Spanish, speaks conversational Italian and French which is not only very impressive, it has come in very handy on our travels over the years. He is an amazing cook and makes dinner for us every night. He makes great Indian food (taught by our good friend who is Indian, and a cooking class we took in India), and after getting a wok for Christmas has been making lots of delicious stir-fry and other Asian recipes. He takes a lot of pride in cooking healthy food for our family, and I am so grateful for this.

Jason is supportive and protective of me and I know he will be the same as a father. I can’t wait to see him be a dad, and can imagine him reading to your child, teaching them how to play chess, how to play piano, and comforting them when they are having a hard time, just like he comforts me. He is incredibly unique as is our relationship and our life together.

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Lifestyle

Now that the pandemic is over, we see friends and family much more often, hosting and attending dinner parties, and we go to New York more frequently.

Now we both work from home, and our life is quieter and calmer. We cook at home for nearly all our meals. Jason’s hours are quite flexible, but he works roughly within normal business hours. Liana sees children for therapy sessions after-school, so is free during the day and works from roughly 3-8. Jason has a very light schedule on Mondays and Liana doesn’t work Fridays.

Most days we are awakened by our cat, Diego, crying for food earlier than we’d like! Jason usually gets up first, feeds the cats, makes coffee and has some reading time with the cats. Liana gets up shortly after and joins Jason and the cats for coffee, on the porch in the summer, in front of the fire in the winter. We have breakfast together, then start our days. Jason will have meetings and projects he’s working on. Before she starts work, Liana may go to the gym or for a walk with our neighbor, go grocery shopping or do laundry. We are able to have lunch together most days, outside at our picnic table in the summer. When Jason is finished with work, he has some time to himself and he’ll watch soccer, play the piano or do yoga. He starts to cook dinner around 7 and when Liana emerges from her office at 8, the whole house always smells delicious.

Weekends are pretty low key, with lazier breakfasts like pancakes or waffles, and lingering over coffee longer. We almost always do something outside, either just the two of us, or with family or friends. The season dictates what that will be… hiking in any season, swimming and kayaking in summer, snowshoeing, cross country skiing in winter. We’ll have a low-key get together with family or friends whenever possible, such as dinner at our house, a BBQ, getting pizza or tacos and picnicking by the river, or a casual outdoor concert.

Our schedules are so ideal that we won’t have to worry about daycare when we become parents. Liana will spend the morning and first half of the day with the baby, then Jason will take over in the afternoon/evenings. Mondays will be Jason’s special one-on-one day with your baby and Fridays will be Liana and Baby’s special day together.

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Home & Neighborhood

We lived in New York City for fifteen years, and while we loved our time there, we agreed we would move out of the city before starting a family. We wanted to be somewhere with more space and quiet and access to nature and with a lot of family nearby. We moved to Vermont because we have a wonderful community of aunts, uncles and cousins here who will be a big part of your child’s life. This is our first house – we fell in love with it when we saw it and we bought it with our plans for a family in mind. We feel so lucky to have found this special home, where we can see the sunrise over the Green Mountains on one side, and watch the sunset over the Adirondack Mountains on the other side.

In the warmer months, we sit on the porch and drink our coffee in the morning and have friends and family over for dinner at our picnic table. We have a fire pit where our nephews love to roast marshmallows and we just tried our hand at gardening and had a pretty successful vegetable garden this past summer! In the colder months we have a great sledding hill in our yard and the coziest fireplace in our living room.

We have created a peaceful and serene nursery that is ready to go! It is painted and furnished, and we have already started to fill it with clothing, books and toys for a baby’s first years. It is light and bright with multiple windows and skylights. It looked magical to us on our first visit to the house, when the big maple tree right outside the window was lit up with beautiful fiery orange fall colors. The room is spacious enough for a baby to grow into, and it has its own bathroom and shower which they will appreciate when they’re a teenager!

We live 15 minutes from cousins and close to the best river swimming hole for hot summer days, the lake for swimming and kayaking, a great hill for snowboarding, and beautiful trails for cross country skiing. There are so many fun hikes within a few minutes’ drive from our house. Our neighbors (who we bought our house from and who are now dear friends) live on an apple orchard which they welcome us to use anytime for walks, snow shoeing, and picnics.

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Our Sweet Kitties

We have two sweet cats, Ivan & Diego. They are brothers, and we adopted them when we moved back to the US from London, in 2010, when they were just kittens. They are very affectionate and spend most of their days cuddled up together in various spots around the house. They each have funny quirks and distinct personalities. Ivan sleeps on top of Jason every single night, between the sheet and the covers, while Diego sleeps on top of Liana over the covers. Diego always sits on Jason’s lap in the morning while he’s having coffee. They are both curled up on our laps in the evenings when we watch TV, and especially love to sit in front of the fire. Ivan is smart and sassy and very loving, and Diego is just plain sweet and loves a tummy rub. Jason jokes that Ivan is his best friend!

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Our Families & Friends

We have wonderful friends and family across the country who are so excited for us to become parents, and who will be very involved in your baby’s life. They are rooting for us and will offer support, advice, and love to us, and unconditional love and adoration to your little one.

We are close with Liana’s sister, Gina and her husband Teo, who live in upstate New York with their three boys, Max (13), Teddy (12) and Magnus (5). We love to spoil our nephews, and have been a big part of their lives since they were born. We always spend Thanksgiving with them, and they join us on our annual family camping trip. The boys love playing hide and seek in our house with their cousins, because we have some fun hidden closets and passageways. Gina is an amazing mom who is raising her boys beautifully. She has been saving all of her baby stuff for us, and will teach us everything she knows. Teo is the best dad in the world, so patient and calm, and is a great role model. Gina and Teo can’t wait to be doting Aunt and Uncle to your baby, and Max, Teddy and Magnus can’t wait to have a new cousin!

Liana and her mom, Beryl, had a very close relationship and spoke daily. Unfortunately, Beryl was diagnosed with cancer in March 2022 and passed away in May 2022. Beryl, who was known as Bubbie to her grandkids, had been over the moon about welcoming a new grandchild through adoption. We are grateful she could be part of our adoption journey before she died. She wrote a reference letter for our home study and helped us create our profile for ANLC. She knit a blanket for the baby, as she did for all of her grandchildren, which is in our nursery today.

Liana’s maternal Aunt Laurie, and her partner Nancy, have been amazing Aunties to Liana & Gina, and doting Great Aunties to Max, Teddy and Magnus.

Jason’s younger sister, Jennifer, lives in Brooklyn with her girlfriend Dana. We saw Jennifer very often when we used to live near her, but now she visits us in Vermont, and we visit her when we return to the city. They hope to start a family soon, as well. Jason’s younger brother, Jeff, and his wife, Tammi, live in Boston, and are super smart and funny, and love board games and science fiction. Jason’s parents, Hud and Marilyn, live in California and are kind and generous. They will give their kids whatever they need with no questions asked. Your baby would be their first grandchild, which they have been waiting for ever so patiently!

We moved to Vermont to be surrounded by our wonderful family here. Liana has six paternal aunts and uncles, and eight first cousins who have five children between them (so far!). We see them often, spend holidays together, and go camping, hiking, sailing, and kayaking together. They are fun, lovely people who go out of their way for each other, and for us, are always just a phone call away and have been invaluable to us as first time home owners and new residents in Vermont. They would drop everything to help any of us, and will be a beautiful community for your baby to grow up with.

Our dear friends Evan and Colleen live in Texas and lived in New York when we did. Evan works in tech like Jason, and Colleen is a child therapist like Liana. We went to India together, and hope to travel together again soon. We’ve been talking about a trip to Mexico City! They are special and wonderful people.

Sonny and Shubhra live in Brooklyn and just welcomed their first baby, Ayaan. We attended their wedding in India. Shubhra lived in London when we did, where she and Liana worked together. Sonny and Shubhra are the sweetest people and have hearts of gold. Shubhra says she is already planning a baby shower for us in her mind!

Summer and Liana have been friends since interning together in social work school in 2006. We were delighted when she met her husband Issouf, and were at their wedding and at the hospital the day both of their children were born. Jason and Issouf hit it off immediately, and are kindred spirits. We have had the pleasure of watching Grady (8) and Raye (3) grow up.

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Racial and Cultural Diversity

We always imagined adopting as the right way for us to create our family. We never felt we needed a genetic connection to be parents, and therefore have always assumed we would become parents to children who do not look like us. We know this is a complicated issue which comes with challenges and we do not take this lightly.

Before formally beginning the adoption process, we read books and listened to podcasts about transracial adoption and talked to members of the adoption community in Vermont to learn about local support. We signed up for a three part training about thriving as a transcultural family and found a monthly parenting circle for people parenting transracially that we can (and will) join if a child of a different ethnicity is entrusted to us. We have thought long and hard about the ethics of raising a child of color, but have been pleased to learn there are many resources and a tight knit community of adoptive families.

We lived in NYC for over 15 years, where we built a diverse group of friends who are still very much in our lives and who will be a big part of your child’s life. We have prioritized travel and exposure to different cultures and parts of the world and plan to continue these experiences when we become parents, teaching your child the value we see in all parts of society. We will honor your child’s heritage and make sure they know who they are and where they came from and raise them to be proud of their family or origin, their ancestors, their cultures and traditions.

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Family Traditions

We are not religious, but we do have traditions that revolve around family, food, holidays, and our cultural backgrounds. Jason’s father is from Iran, so Iranian food is always a part of get-togethers with his parents in Southern California. Jason has learned to make his favorite dish, ghormeh sabzi, and his sister Jennifer has perfected Tahdig, crispy Persian rice. We alternate spending Christmas in Vermont with Liana’s family and in California with Jason’s family. We always spend Thanksgiving in Buffalo with Liana’s family because Max’s birthday is the same time of year, so we combine it with a family birthday party for him.

When we spend Christmas in California, there are many traditions, including driving around to look at lights on Christmas Eve while blasting Christmas music, and a game Jason’s dad, Hud invented, called “the cookie game.” Everyone chooses from a pile of identical boxes of cookies, all of which Hud has opened and resealed with money in each box. It’s a game of luck which changes every year, with some boxes containing $1 and some containing more. Whoever gets the box with the most money wins (but everyone really wins because we all get money and cookies!).

When we spend Christmas in Vermont, there is always a huge Christmas Eve party attended by all the aunts, uncles and cousins. There is always lots of food, we belt Christmas carols around the piano, and a hilarious gift swap… the gifts seem to get sillier every year. Christmas morning everyone gathers for a huge Christmas brunch. The two celebrations have been going on since Liana was a little kid. We look forward to begin hosting Christmas brunch now that we live here.

Liana’s mom is Jewish, so we light the Menorah every Hanukkah and make latkes. Many of Liana’s favorite foods are from the Jewish culture, such as bagels, matzo ball soup and babka.

We go camping every single summer with all the aunts, uncles and cousins in Vermont. We have been going to the same state park on an island in Lake Champlain since Liana was a little kid, and it is a magical place, unchanged by time (it looks exactly the same as it did 30 years ago!). Each family stays at their own campsite, but we book a bunch of sites all next to each other. Each family takes one night to host dinner for the entire family. We watch the sunset over the lake every evening and gather around the campfire every night. The whole family looks forward to this all year and it’s a very special place and time.

The summer of 2021 was our first summer here, and we hosted a big 4th of July BBQ which we hope to make an annual tradition.

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Vacations and Leisure Time

We prioritize experiences over things, and have chosen to spend our money and free time traveling. We love to explore new places and have some favorites we love returning to. We have a long list of places we hope to get to soon and would show your child as much of the world as we can! We try to really get to know the places we visit, getting to know the people, food and history. We’ve taken surfing lessons in Costa Rica, a cooking class in India and met amazing people along the way. We work hard and care deeply about our jobs, but also truly value a healthy work-life balance and love our vacations!

We have amazing memories from our trips over the past 16 years, such as snorkeling in the Caymans, spending whole days watching pelicans on the beach in Tulum, seeing a man feed his dog gelato at an outdoor café in Rome, feeding sloths at an animal sanctuary in Costa Rica, discovering a beach shack in Mexico that became our favorite restaurant, spending Christmas in Milan, returning to Rome together years after our honeymoon to visit all of our favorite spots, and the list goes on. We treasure these experiences and memories and plan to make many more as we continue our life together.

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Our Careers and Passions

Liana is a child and adolescent psychotherapist and has a private practice offering play therapy and psychotherapy to people from birth through college age. Liana got a master’s degree in clinical social work after graduating with her bachelor’s degree in psychology. She initially worked in psychiatric rehabilitation with adults with severe and persistent mental illness in Manhattan. When we moved to London, so Jason could pursue a master’s degree, Liana had the opportunity to work for the National Health Service as a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Practitioner. She loved this job, providing therapy to children in multicultural South London, and found her calling. Liana developed a passion for helping young people, because childhood can be difficult for many.

When we returned to Brooklyn, Liana looked for a job similar to the one she had in London, but a similar setting did not exist due to differences between the US and UK mental health systems. She decided to start a private practice so she could continue this important work. She had a successful practice in New York for over 10 years, and has since transitioned her practice to Vermont. She strives to provide a safe, empathic and accepting environment for children to be heard and supported, and aims to help her clients achieve happiness and peace. Through long term work with her patients, Liana has formed meaningful relationships with children and teens. She has had the pleasure of watching them grow over the years, and has been a consistent, supportive presence in their lives. This experience has enhanced Liana’s understanding of the needs and pressures of children and teens, and parents and families.

Jason got his first master’s degree in financial math and got a job at an investment bank right after graduating. Finance didn’t feel like the right environment or culture for him, so after a couple years in the field, he opted to get a second master’s degree in theoretical physics. This gave us an amazing opportunity to live in London. Jason wanted to become a physics professor, but he learned that a career in academia could make it difficult to support a family, so instead he taught himself computer programming and became a data scientist, which ended up being just the right fit. Jason has worked in technology for over ten years at various start-ups, and enjoys the creativity and flexibility this allows him. He manages a diverse team spread across the world.

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Our Promise to You

We promise to cherish your baby and never take them, or you, for granted. Every decision we make will be with your baby’s best interest in mind. Our priorities will focus on providing the best life possible for him or her. We will never take the responsibility of parenting your child lightly. We promise to support each other, and to support you, in whatever way we can, as we navigate through this emotional process. We feel so much love and gratitude toward you, even for considering us, and would consider it an honor and a privilege to adopt and raise your baby.