Collin and Alix

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From Us to You

We have so much respect for you and can only imagine what you are going through while you find a family for your child. You must be an incredibly strong person to start this process and do what you consider best for you and your baby. We would love to have an open adoption and to get to know you. We want to remain in contact and provide you with pictures and updates on your child so you can see them grow. We are open to yearly visits as well. Ultimately, we want you to decide how open you would like this adoption to be. We hope to see you as a part of our family, and we want your child to know where they came from and know how much you mean to us for giving us the opportunity to be parents.

We are happy to introduce ourselves to you. Our names are Alix and Collin. We have been together for almost 20 years and married for seven years. Collin’s best friend set us up in high school and the rest is history. We believe our relationship has lasted so long because we are very honest and laugh a lot. We make a great team and have been told by friends and family that we balance each other out. Collin is a bit more laid back and loves to make everyone laugh. Alix is more organized, and career-focused although she loves to joke around as well. We can’t imagine life without one another and can’t wait to start this new part of our lives!

We believe it takes a community to raise a child to be well-rounded and happy. We live very close to many friends and the majority of our family, all of whom are excited to see us become parents and grow our family. Both our parents are still married which is rare in these times. They are excited to have another grandchild to spoil! Our closest friends and many of our cousins have very young children and they can’t wait to have a new friend and playmate. We also have four nieces and nephews ranging in age from nine months to 14 years old. There is no doubt that everyone in our family with play a part in raising your child. We have very open and loving people in our family who all say we are overdue to become parents.

We truly believe that adoption is the best option for us, and we would be great parents to your child. We understand that adoption is a unique situation, but we will turn any challenges into opportunities to grow and learn. We plan to be proactive with therapy which we would do for any child. We will be very open about why they were adopted and where they came from. We hope that an open adoption will answer any questions they have and give them an even bigger family resource. It is important that we continue to educate ourselves on what we can do to help them as they grow older.

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Why We are Choosing to Adopt

Adoption has always been a part of our life plan. We have always wanted to have two children, one naturally and the second through adoption. Before we started the journey to try to get pregnant, we decided that we only wanted to conceive if it could be done naturally. We tried for about five years using many fertility methods and sought professional advice. After lots of medical bills and no answers, fertility procedures (IVF, etc.) were the next option. It was not a hard decision for us to turn to adoption since we had already planned on it.

Some have asked why we would not want to pursue fertility procedures. We are grateful that there is an option, but we don’t feel that it is the right choice for us. We have never felt that our children must share our DNA or look like us. We have seen that adoption can be a wonderful experience. We both had friends growing up that were adopted. Collin’s cousin and wife adopted a child about seven years ago and they have been a great resource for advice as we start our adoption journey. They are a part of an adoption support group nearby that we can’t wait to join one day.

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About Alix, by Collin

Alix is my best friend in the world!  She has helped me become the man I am today, and I can confidently say she is always helping to make me a better person.  Alix is one of the most motivated and hardworking people I know.  She never stops working at what she wants to achieve, and it has been amazing watching her conquer every obstacle that has ever stood in her path.  I feel incredibly lucky that I found someone who has so many similar interests and shares the same values as me.

I constantly find myself in awe of Alix.  She is so strong but so caring, she helps keep me grounded no matter what the situation.  Alix has an amazing ability to find the good in people and in situations.  Alix is always up for adventure.  We have gone skydiving twice together and we go scuba diving yearly.  I’m very confident that if Alix hadn’t encouraged me to experience these new things, I never would have done either.  I’m so excited for the opportunity to be the father of your child, and I’m equally excited for your child to have the opportunity to see Alix as a mother.

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About Collin, by Alix

Collin is my best friend and there isn’t a better person for me to spend my life with. I’m incredibly lucky to have found someone so early in my life that shares the same values and makes me so happy. He grounds me and lifts me up when I need it. Collin is the kind of person that everyone likes. He loves to make everyone laugh and is a very caring person.

Collin’s mom ran a daycare in their house until Collin was in high school. You can tell that this had a positive impact on his life as he is exceptionally good with kids. Collin tends to be the favorite adult with all our friends’ and families’ kids. We joke that we don’t need entertainment at their kids’ birthday parties as he is the entertainment. I love to see the kids smile when they see him and shout, “Collin is here!” I can’t wait to see him become the amazing father he is meant to be.

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What Kind of Parents we Will Be

We are eager to grow our family so we can become the parents we know we are meant to be. We will share our knowledge with our children and start new traditions and memories. We will not be overbearing parents, but we will have rules. We want our children to make their own decisions and learn from their successes and failures, and we will help guide them by being good examples.

Being accepting of other people’s beliefs and cultures is important and we will educate as well as travel to different countries as a family so they can experience different cultures firsthand. We were both raised to be accepting of all races and cultures and know that it is vital to being a good person.

Education is important and we will do everything we can to make sure our children get a good education. We will have a college fund for them, but it will be their decision if they decide to go to college or not. We know many very successful people who never went to college and don’t want to force college on our children. We know a little Spanish, and would love for our children to learn another language so we can learn along with them.

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Lifestyle

Our health is very important to us. We have a mini gym in our home that we use often, and Alix loves to run outdoors when the weather is nice. We changed our diets to plant-based about seven years ago after Alix experienced stomach problems and found that we both gained substantial health benefits from eating plant-based. We are both spoiled by Collin’s cooking. He makes dinner most of the time and our favorite foods to make are tacos, curries, pasta, and buddha bowls. Although we eat healthy most of the time, we do like to indulge occasionally. Alix loves to bake and is known for her delicious cookies. We also like to take mini-vacations to Chicago and Milwaukee to indulge in their many plant-based restaurants.

We love to travel. Alix was very lucky to have parents that took the family on vacations all over the world. Collin caught the travel bug when he went on vacation with Alix’s family to Antigua when we were in high school. We went scuba diving during our honeymoon in Roatan, Honduras seven years ago and we fell in love. We try to take a trip every year to go scuba diving and hope that your child will share the same love of scuba diving once they are old enough. We will hold off on scuba diving until they are older, but in the meantime, there are so many places to travel to and fun activities that we can do as a family.

Our favorite activity near our home is going hiking with our dog at the Ranch. The Ranch is an outdoor education facility and camp for kids that Alix’s mother and two of her aunts own. There are 200 acres of beautiful land with quarries and canyons that are used for horseback riding and hiking. We both worked as camp counselors while we were in high school. It never felt much like a job there since it was so much fun to work there with kids. This place is special to many people, and we know how lucky we are. We are so excited to have a child to share this place with.

We are both very close with our families and we have some of the best friends in the world. Most of our family members and friends live within 10 minutes of us so we get together very often for dinner, games, and just to enjoy each other’s company. Most of our gatherings consist of potluck meals that we contribute some of our favorite plant-based dishes that everyone looks forward to. Alix’s dad is a big meat eater, and he even has taken a liking to our dishes. Football games on the TV are a common occurrence; otherwise, we usually enjoy being outside when it is nice playing lawn games and water games with the kids. We have our immediate families over to our house about every other weekend or get together at one of our parents’ houses where we take turns cooking a meal or ordering from one of our favorite restaurants. It isn’t unusual for both of our parents to come over for dinner since they have grown to be friends over our almost 20-year relationship. Our parents absolutely love being grandparents and can’t wait for another grandchild!

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Skiba, Peter, & Kimchi

We have three furry babies at home; one French Bulldog, and two cats who we consider to be a part of our family.

Our dog, Skiba, is a spoiled rotten six-year-old French Bulldog. Even though Alix works from home most of the time, Skiba’s grandma picks him up a few days a week so he can go to work with her at the Ranch. The Ranch is his favorite place in the world, and it is his job to play with the kids and snuggle the homesick kids during summer camp. He doesn’t have to be on a leash there so he can run around and play as much as he wants. He needs a kid brother or sister at home to play with!

We adopted our cat, Peter, from a shelter four years ago as a kitten. He is our big lazy cat who loves to snuggle. Kimchi, our other cat, showed up under our porch as a sick stray kitten a few months after we got Peter. We got her the help she needed, and she won our hearts immediately. Collin was never much of a cat person, but Kimchi quickly changed that, and you can now find him carrying her around the house like a baby. Our cats take a bit to warm up to new people, but once they figure out you are a safe person, they like to snuggle up and get all the head-scratching they can. We have no doubt that they will warm up quickly to a human brother or sister.

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Careers

Alix has a master’s degree in accountancy, and is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Internal Auditor (CIA). She has worked for the same accounting firm on financial institution audits for the past ten years. Although her childhood dream job was to become a marine biologist and work with sharks, she took an accounting class in high school and found she was good at it and could remain close to family and friends. She loves the firm she works for as they care about their employees and continued education on not only just work-related matters, but important things like mental health, diversity, and inclusion. She is a Senior Manager and gets to set her own schedule which allows for a lot of flexibility including working from home.

Collin is a print technician and graphic designer. He took after his dad in his occupation. His occupation is perfect for him since he is a creative person. Although he enjoys his job, we are considering him becoming a part-time or full-time stay-at-home parent while your child is young. He can not think of a job more rewarding than raising a child.

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Home & Neighborhood

We live in a small, cute town in Illinois where we both grew up. The best part about where we live is that we are very close to family and friends. Many of our high school friends have started moving back recently because it is a great place to raise a family. The location of our town is perfect to enjoy the country while being close enough to a city and the suburbs to do day trips. We love the country, but we love being close enough to visit the city which we visit often for concerts, and to an airport, so we can vacation.

We love how outdoorsy our town is. We have three state parks and many other parks in town. We live within walking distance of a park with lots of paved trails for running and biking, soccer fields, baseball fields, basketball courts, pickleball, a splash pad for kids and play sets. The park near our house is even great in the winter for sledding. A river runs through our town that is busy in the summer with lots of boats. We love to go canoeing with friends in the summer.

We bought our home eight years ago and it felt like home ever since we moved in. It is an older home that has been updated but still retains a lot of character of a well-built older home. There is plenty of room to grow our family as we have three bedrooms and three bathrooms. Our favorite part is our kitchen where we spend a lot of time making meals. We live only two blocks from the school district which will make it convenient when we finally have a child.

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Our Families & Friends

Alix has one brother. Her brother and sister-in-law only live 40 minutes away with their children (a son who is four and a daughter who is 9 months old). We absolutely adore our niece and nephew and try to spend as much time as we can with them. We can’t wait for your child to be able to spend quality time with his or her cousins as they grow up!

Collin has two sisters. His older sister and her husband just recently relocated to Hawaii with their 11-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter. They have relocated often throughout the years as they are a military family. We love every second we get to spend with them when they come home to visit. We hope to be able to visit them in Hawaii soon. Collin’s younger sister and her husband live in Utah. They don’t have any children of their own, but they are a great Aunt and Uncle. We have many group text chats with the whole family to stay in touch and do video calls occasionally.

Since we have basically grown up together, most of our friends are the same and we consider our family. Many of our friends have children of their own and we both take great pride in helping our friends raise their kids. We love to babysit, and it can be tough to get the kids to go home sometimes.

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Racial & Cultural Diversity

We understand the importance of race and cultural diversity. Our parents raised us to be this way and we love learning about cultures. The world would be a very boring place if everyone looked and acted the same way. One of our favorite parts about traveling is being immersed in the culture. Even though our town has grown in diversity over the years, we would have no problem moving to be closer to larger communities. There is a lot more diversity the closer we get to the city, and we could still be close to family.

As white parents, we know that we will have to do extra work if your child is of a different race. We are more than willing to do the work and spend the time doing further research to educate ourselves. We know that it is important to nurture a strong ethnic identity and we are excited to incorporate that into our family. We will incorporate your child’s cultural music, traditions, language, and learn traditional recipes.

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Family Traditions

Holiday traditions are important to us. Alix’s favorite holiday is Thanksgiving since it is all about family and food. Alix hosts Thanksgiving along with her mother for her large extended family (about 30 people) and cooks a big plant-based meal of Collin’s favorites to thank him for all the cooking he does throughout the year. We spend Thanksgiving morning at Collin’s grandparents’ and then head to the Ranch to spend the afternoon with Alix’s side of the family filling ourselves with food and playing games. There is always a bunch of kids running around having fun. We can’t wait to see your child join in on the fun and, hopefully, help Alix make some dishes to pass too.

Collin’s family is crazy about Christmas. We always spend Christmas Eve with Alix’s side of the family, but we cannot miss Christmas day with Collin’s family. Christmas Eve is similar to Thanksgiving as we get together at the Ranch, and we love to watch the kids open their presents from their extended family. It is always a lot of fun to play with their new toys with them. Collin always turns into a big kid every Christmas and can’t sleep the night before because of the excitement of going to his parent’s house to be with his family. Even though both of his sisters have moved away, they both try to make it a priority to bring their families home for Christmas when they can. We all get up early on Christmas day and go to Collin’s parent’s house for breakfast and to open presents with our niece and nephew. We then head over to his grandparents’ house to spend the rest of the day eating and playing cards while the kids usually play in the living room with their new toys. We hope your child shares Collin’s family’s same level of enthusiasm for Christmas. We can already picture them sitting in Collin’s parent’s living room eagerly awaiting the presents they are about to open with their cousins.

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Our Promise to You

We promise to love your child with all our hearts and use every inch of our being to care for them throughout their life. We will give them every opportunity to grow and be their most authentic self. We can’t wait to start new traditions and have many cherished memories with your child. We promise to be open and honest throughout the adoption process and during your child’s life. Getting to know you will be an added benefit. We would love to answer any of your questions if you choose to meet with us. Even if you decide not to meet with us, we wish you the best of health and lots of love during your pregnancy.