Joshua and Tesa

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From Us to You

Dear Expectant Mother,

We would like to thank you for taking the time to hear from us. Just by taking the time to read through our profile, you’ve become a part of our journey to growing our family for which we are eternally grateful. We’ve been praying that the right person might read about us and be moved to get to know us more.

We’d love to start by telling you a little about us. We have known each other for many years, meeting first while in high school. While we didn’t start dating until after Joshua graduated, we consider ourselves as close to high school sweethearts as one can get! We’ve spent much of our lives together and have in many ways, grown up together.

We’ve been discussing adoption for several years following the news of needing medical intervention due to infertility. We made the difficult decision of utilizing medical intervention for a few years following that news but continued to discuss adoption during that time as well. We’re excited to fully commit to growing our family through adoption and the rollercoaster of emotions that come with it.

Through our time together, we have enjoyed many adventures together. We love to travel and explore the world around us by visiting new states, National Parks, and more! While traveling far from home can be very intriguing, we also enjoy exploring close to home and finding local eateries and shops. We’re so excited for a little bundle to join in on those adventures! We can’t wait to experience these places through their eyes and to make so many more memories traveling as a family!

We enjoy being home in each other’s company with our pets just as much as we enjoy exploring. On a normal day, you could find us at home watching movies, reading our books, or playing board games. We’re already stocked up on books for your child to enjoy! We are excited to enjoy these times at home with them! We enjoy hosting dinners for our family and enjoying a nice day at home. We often attend church events or Bible studies throughout the week. Our church members are so excited to see another child added to our congregation! We can’t wait to share our church with them to participate in Trunk-or-Treat, youth activities, and more! We enjoy going to the movies to see the latest DC, Marvel, or Harry Potter movies as we consider ourselves a bit nerdy. On the weekends, you could find us enjoying a slow day at home or enjoying the presence of our nieces. We’re excited to see if your child chooses a wand or a cape and which fandom they enjoy the most! We’re ready to share these moments with your child and excited to see them fit into our family gatherings and outings!

We enjoy being with our three nieces as much as we can. We have two nieces that are around a year to a year and a few months old. Our oldest niece is around 8 years old. While we both love them, Uncle Josh is one of their favorite people! We enjoy taking her on “days of fun” which typically include her favorite food, sushi, and an activity of her choice, typically Science City, painting pottery, and the zoo. We are so excited to have your child join in on these days of fun! We are slowly adding to our traditions, like Boo at the Zoo, which we’re excited to take your child to with their cousins!

We, along with our families, are very excited to grow our family through adoption. We’re very excited to share our family traditions and have more people to share our lives with. While our traditions are important to us, we are excited to bring other traditions into our home with a new addition to our family. We would love to add your child’s heritage, culture, and family traditions to the ones we currently have. Through that, we’re excited to teach them to cook and bake foods from their culture. We’re so excited to make messes in the kitchen with them as we make these special treats!

Our hope is that we would have open communication with you, their birth family. We would love to share videos, pictures, letters, and visits throughout the years to stay connected. Not only would this help integrate our families, but it will also provide them the opportunity to better understand themselves and where they came from. This will allow us to answer questions that your child might have as they grow up and discover their personal identity.

We would again like to thank you for taking time out of your life to learn a little about us. We are eternally grateful that we’ve become a part of your story. While nothing we can do or say will make this transition easier for you, please know that you and your child are constantly in our thoughts and prayers. We are praying for your health, guidance in whatever decision you choose, and peace in whatever decision you make for your family.

With love,
Tesa and Joshua

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Why We are Choosing to Adopt

We chose to pursue adoption because we are ready to grow our family. We tried multiple rounds of medical treatments that lasted for over three years. Before starting that journey, and during it, we continued to talk about our options for growing our family in different ways, including adoption. During our conversations, we realized that while we were eager to start our family, we did not believe that to do so we must have biological children. Our desire to become parents center around providing unconditional love and support to a child, whether they shared our DNA or not. In coming to this conclusion, we decided to stop our treatments, and pursue growing our family through adoption. Throughout our fertility and adoption journey, we have been very open with our friends and family, which has given us so much support. We are all very eager for a new addition to join our family and begin this next chapter together.

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About Us

We met when we were a junior and senior in high school, though we didn’t end up dating until after Joshua had graduated. We lost contact once Joshua went to college but reconnected when he came back to watch a show choir competition. Once we began dating, we immediately had a long-distance relationship. This didn’t change when Tesa graduated, as she started college in Arkansas. We used our available weekends to travel to see each other as often as possible. Once Tesa left Arkansas, we moved in together in a city in Missouri, where we lived for several years. While there, we both graduated college and began our professional careers. We also began our fertility treatments there in the first home we bought together. But being so far from our families was difficult, so we recently moved near our hometowns to be closer to them. We’ve learned a lot through our ten years together and are looking forward to growing our family!

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About Tesa, by Joshua

Tesa brings so much joy to my life. She’s got an amazing sense of humor and a quick wit that keeps me on my toes. She’s always wanting to try something new and exciting and pushes me to do new things. Through all of our trouble with IVF, she’s shown an incredible amount of persistence and toughness. Proverbs 31: 26-31 is a perfect reflection of Tesa. It reads, “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness. She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.” I’ve known for a long time that Tesa will make an amazing mother. Watching her interact with our friends’ kids and our nieces have just reaffirmed that fact. She’s patient and firm when she needs to be, and gives so much love to those kids.

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About Joshua, by Tesa

Joshua is first and foremost my safe place. Joshua is one of the most patient and loving people that I know. He is my sounding board, and I know that with him by my side, anything is possible. Because of all of this, and watching Joshua going above and beyond for his nieces, and more, I knew that Joshua would be a great father someday. He’s shown that same patience and kindness to our three nieces. Seeing him be the best uncle he can be has been the sweetest thing to witness! When I think of who Joshua is, I think of 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8, which reads, “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”

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Lifestye

During a normal day, you can find us at home relaxing around our house. We enjoy cooking, baking, and playing games. Joshua does a lot of the cooking for us at home. His favorite type of cooking is grilling or smoking various foods. Tesa enjoys baking sweet treats and bread to share with her family and friends! While we enjoy recharging at home together, we also enjoy investigating the world around us. We enjoy various adventures including our local cities and states far away. We love playing board games together, such as Ticket to Ride, Risk, and Monopoly. We enjoy watching movies, especially if they’re Marvel or DC, but Tesa’s ultimate favorite is Harry Potter, which Joshua watches with minimal complaints for a muggle. We often have family over for dinners at our house. We love spending time with our families and seeing our three nieces continue to grow into wonderful people. We have an eight-year-old step-niece and two one-year-old nieces. We take our older niece on a “day of fun” as often as our schedules allow. These days are typically filled with activities such as visits to Science City and the zoo, and painting pottery with a dinner of her choice, which is typically sushi. We are very excited to have your child join in on these activities. We imagine that your child would fit perfectly into these activities with our family and nieces. Our families are excited for another little one to join in on the fun with things like trunk-or-treat, family gatherings, and birthday dinners as a family.

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Hobbies

We enjoy doing a lot of things together. We enjoy going to the movies, watching movies at home, sharing our love for others through food, playing board games, and more! We use this time to reconnect and relax after a long day at work. While we do enjoy being together, we also have our own individual interests as well. Joshua enjoys playing board games like Axis and Allies, Risk 2210, and Dungeons and Dragons with friends and playing video games, listening to podcasts and audiobooks, and watching the Chiefs and Titans football games. Joshua enjoys playing games with his friends when he can, they regularly meet once a month with his friends so that they can play board games together. Tesa enjoys crocheting, baking, reading, hanging out with her family, and listening to music in her free time. Typically, her crochet projects and baked goods are shared with friends and family as a way to express her love for them. Her favorite things to crochet are blankets and hats. She loves to bake sweet treats and bread most of all!

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Home & Neighborhood

Our home is a spacious split-level home. We utilize this space for family gatherings, especially around the holidays. We enjoy cozying up on the couch to watch TV and movies. Upstairs is vital to our home, including our kitchen, living room, and bedrooms. We are lucky enough to have space for a nursery right across from our bedroom. Our downstairs houses Joshua’s office where he works from home every day and a small rec room. We enjoy decorating the house depending on the holiday or season to make our house a cozy home! We also have a 4-year-old dog named Killian and an 7-year-old cat, Maya.

Our neighborhood has many children that you can often find playing outside with their families. Our favorite thing about Halloween is how many trick-or-treaters we have come to our door. In our first year, we had over 100 kids stop at our house! Our neighborhood is safe with friendly neighbors and is the perfect location to hop on the highway to get to any destination in town.

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Racial & Cultural Diversity

We are open to all racial and cultural backgrounds. We see this as a way to continue to become open-minded and learn about people that are different from us. We believe that all humans should be treated with the same regard and respect because we are all most importantly human first. We are excited to embrace the heritage and culture of whatever child God has in His plans for us. We are ready to learn, explore, and inherit a new culture into our family. We are looking forward to diversifying our family and our circle of friends. We are ready to reach out and learn all that we can from mentors and those in our community to ensure that your child knows their heritage and culture to best help them develop their own identity.

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Family Traditions

One tradition that we both love is having Thanksgiving at our house. Food brings people together, and we love that we are able to provide that space for our family. We typically have the same food each year, which we cook for our family. Since we took over for Thanksgiving, we ask for one dish from each family member that they’d like to see at Thanksgiving. Some of our “classics” are homemade mac and cheese, corn casserole, crockpot ham, dill dip for an appetizer, and apple pie. A fun tradition that we have brought into our family from Tesa’s is having a special Christmas day mug. You get to pick your Christmas out and that’s the glass you use that morning while we open presents! While we don’t have a lot of traditions outside of national holidays, we are constantly going out of our way to add new things to our lives. We are eager to add traditions from your family into our home to help your child know their history and create their personal identity.

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Faith

Our faith is very important to us. We are both Baptists and believe that the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ. We regularly attend our local church, including Sunday School, morning service, and Wednesday night Bible study. We both enjoy serving at our church through the social committee and through working the sound booth on Sundays. We are well connected with our church family, who are very excited to welcome a new member to our congregation. Our church has a well-established and attended children’s church that is eager to surround any new member with love, support, and prayer. Our congregation has been actively praying that the right expectant mother reads our profile and that she is surrounded by God’s love during this difficult time. Tesa also helped to begin a women’s Bible study that meets every other Thursday that discusses how to be the best Christ-centered woman we can be. We often discuss how to best bring up children within the church and to give them the best God-centered morals that we can.

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Our Promise to You

Our promise to you is to love your child with all of our hearts. We promise to include them in all aspects of our lives including travel and our sense of adventure. But while they join our family, it’s important to recognize that we join theirs. We promise to always recognize their heritage and history. We look forward to adding their traditions and heritage into our family and daily lives. We promise to keep an open contact with you through videos, pictures, and letters from your child. Finally, we promise to always speak of you with the utmost regard and respect. You are an integral part of our family and deserve to be treated as such.

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Notes from Our Families & Friends

“Josh and Tesa are a loving, reliable couple who develop long-lasting trusting relationships with others. They are honest, strong, and moral people who would make outstanding parents. Josh and Tesa have a strong marriage. They work together to solve problems and they are very genuine and loving toward each other.  They always support and help each other regardless of the situation and challenges presented to them.
Josh is a very positive and helpful person who would be a wonderful father.  He is always quick to help with projects at church and in the community. He has volunteered time in church and as an alumnus at the university he attended. He is musically and intellectually gifted and applies his gifts in ways that demonstrate he is a leader and role model for children. Tesa is a very warm and kind person who would be a very loving and nurturing mother.  She is a teacher and is always engaging children in fun and educational activities when opportunities present themselves. She is talented and gifted and applies her gifts in ways that demonstrate she is a wonderful role model for children.
Josh and Tesa possess all the qualities that would make them good parents, they are gentle but firm, patient, organized, caring, loving, and secure.  Any child coming into their home would certainly feel loved and provided for.” – Carl & Sharon, Josh’s parents

“Tesa and Josh are two of my kids’ favorite people. Kirah is 7 and Emma is 1. They always go out of their way to help, from watching them to helping me set up birthday parties. Tesa will take Kirah to do all kinds of activities: painting pottery, science city, and getting Kirah’s favorite food. Josh is very soft-spoken and a man of few words, but as soon as Emma sees him, he’s the only person in the room she wants to hang out with. For the child that gets brought into their life, just know that he/she will be so lucky and loved by so many! These two will be the absolute best parents and they’ll have a great support system! I am so excited for them to start this journey.” – Bree

“Tesa and Joshua have been friends of mine for many years at this point! They are so nice, caring, and responsible. When I was in college, Tesa would invite me to the apartment that she and Joshua shared for home-cooked meals. She and Joshua created such a homey environment and I often look back on those moments fondly.” – Maddie

“Joshua and Tesa have longed for a child to build their family for as long as I can remember. They will be absolutely amazing parents. Their extended families are solid, supportive and want this so much for Joshua and Tesa too. Any child would be blessed to call them Mom and Dad!” – Pam

“Hello! I have known Josh my whole life as we are cousins. Some of my best memories are from times when I was growing up with Josh. I’ve known Tesa for less time, but she’s truly an amazing woman. They hold 3 priorities together: 1) God, 2) their children, and 3) each other. Growing up, Josh had (and still does have) one of the strongest foundations of faith I’ve ever seen, it’s so strong that I’ve actually been a little envious at times because mine hasn’t been that way. I didn’t know Tesa growing up, but just knowing that Josh married her, I know her faith must be pretty strong, too. I have no doubt that everything they have done, separately and together, has been for their future children. I can’t imagine how difficult their journey to have children has been, but their desire to have children has never wavered. Additionally, the love they have for each other hasn’t wavered either. They are going to be incredible parents. The love they have for each other is only going to extend to their children. And their children are so loved already, by the wonderful support system of family and friends they have behind them. If you’re going to consider anyone as parents, please consider them. If anyone deserves to be parents, it’s them.” – Vicci