Brian and Zsofia

>

<

From Us to You

Dear Expectant Mother,

We want to start by expressing our deepest respect and admiration for the courageous and selfless decision you are considering.

We also would like to thank you for taking the time to review our profile. Our hope is that this will help you to get to know us a little better. We know that this is not any easy decision and it’s the most selfless act.  We admire your bravery and strength of character in considering this option and we would be honored and privileged to provide a home and family for your baby.

We always imagined ourselves to be a family of 4 after both of us growing up with siblings. I know our children will have a special bond and we already cannot wait to see them connecting.  Nina is excited to be a big sister, she has been telling us a lot about a little brother or sister for a while now. She has already put some of her baby toys in the other nursery. Sometimes we babysit our neighbor’s son, and she will him with applesauce or would give him the bottle. I know she would be so excited to help us caring for her little sibling.

We cannot wait for the first time, when we can hug your baby and welcome to our family and all the firsts that come after that – small everyday things and big holidays.  We will share the big milestones with you, as we did with our daughter’s birth parents.

Your child will know how much you loved them and that you chose an amazing life for them.

With love,

Zsofia, Brian and Nina

>

<

Why We're Choosing to Adopt

After Zsofia’s childhood cancer, we knew she wouldn’t be able to carry our child, but it was no question that we would love to have a big family together. Early on in our relationship we decided to pursue this dream through adoption.

After 2 long years of waiting, just before the world shut down due to Covid, we finally received the call that we had been chosen by a family. We knew it was meant to be the second we heard that the birth parents were in Alabama, out of all the states, as that’s where we met in 2009.

Our daughter’s birth mom was about 28 weeks pregnant at that time. Time was flying but at the same time was standing still. We followed along her pregnancy journey on how big the baby was. She told me a lot about her doctor visits and as time was passing, we created a great connection.

A week before her due date, Nina’s mother messaged us that she was probably having the baby, so we got in the car and drove down to Alabama overnight. A day later our daughter was born, and our life turned upside down for the better. We also took this time to learn about the area and the roots where her birth parents are from, so we can share with our daughter.

Not a day goes by that we don’t feel thankful for Nina’s birth parents and their decision, and no day passes without us telling our daughter how much we love her. As parents we thought we will teach her, but it turns out, she is teaching us more important things – to slow down and enjoy this life, live fully with lots of laughter and silliness, not care about others’ opinions and definitely how to be more patient. We cherish every stage of her growth and celebrate all the milestones – except the one where everything is NO 🙂 We are ready to relive these moments with your baby if you trust us to do so.

Our families and friends are supporting us on this journey and everyone is excited to welcome your baby into our family.

>

<

About Brian, by Zsofia

Brian is not just my husband and the father of our child, but he is truly my best friend. He’s the person I call whenever something good, exciting or bad happens to me. The person who can calm me down when I am upset or give me a pep talk when I need confidence. We met when we were in our early 20s and we grew up together. From graduating, to seeing each other building a career, becoming a husband and 2 years ago a father it’s been an amazing journey and there is no other person I would rather do this with. Brian is an amazing cook and since we purchased our home, he has become so handy fixing and building stuff. He is always down for any program I come up with. Pumpkin patch or farmers market, he will be there. He is a great dad and I love watching him having tea parties with our daughter.

>

<

About Zsofia, by Brian

Zsofia and I met over 10 years ago and she never stops amazing me with what a wonderful woman she is. During my 5 years in with her in her home country of Hungary I saw how she affects other people’s lives and how she is always willing to put others’ needs in front of her own and never stops helping her family and friends. Since adopting our first child she has shown me once again how amazing she is, but more importantly, what a great mother she is. Nothing is too much for her and her patience is endless. Watching her interact with our daughter is one of my favorite things and exactly what I thought having a family would be like when I was growing up.

I love how similar we are in so many ways. Just to name a few, we love to travel and have traveled to many places, and we love being outdoors, biking, and taking the dogs for walks.

>

<

About Us

Zsofia was born and raised in Hungary. While studying Business and Hospitality Management, she had the opportunity to take an internship in the USA. Little did she know, she was about to meet the love of her life.

Brian was born and raised in the Netherlands to an American mother and a Dutch father, so he grew up bilingual. Brian decided to attend a university in the USA with a similar major as Zsofia.

We met in 2009 while we both spent our internship in the south (Zsofia was in Alabama, Brian was in Louisiana). We had an instant connection and, as cheesy it sounds, it was love at first sight. We continued dating through our internships and we made the long distance relationship work.

Since we are both from Europe, after our studies we returned home – first Zsofia moved to the Netherlands to be with Brian, then a few years later, we both moved to Hungary. After years of traveling and enjoying our newlywed life, in 2017 we decided to move to the US and finally start a family.

In 2020, after more than 2 years of waiting, we finally got the phone call we’d been waiting for and adopted our daughter, Nina. Every single day we are thankful for her birthmom, who made it possible for us to become parents to this wonderful little girl, who brings so much joy to our lives. We know this kind and tender little girl will be the best big sister to your baby.

Since we love to be outdoors and traveling, this is the way we are raising our daughter and plan to raise your baby. We enjoy daily walks together with the dogs, going for bike rides, to the lake on a sunny day or meeting with friends. We both enjoy traveling, and after being fortunate enough to see some beautiful places already, we would like to show the world to our children too and teach them all about different cultures and traditions.

We have so many similarities and we are a perfect complement to each other as a couple, which helps us to get the best out of each other. We are on the same page when it comes to parenting which is so important in offering a stable and loving home for our children.

Zsofia is very creative and always up to something: painting, sewing, making sensory toys. She is also into photography and hopes that eventually she can do that full time. Brian is a good handyman and always on board with Zsofia’s DIY projects around the house. He enjoys watching and playing soccer and going for a run with our dog Rocky.

>

<

Home & Neighborhood

In the spring of 2022, we decided to move further from the city and purchased a home in a new community in a small town with nearby lakes and a beautiful scenic area in the suburbs. Going from a street with no kids, we ended up in a street full of kiddos of all ages, where every day is a playdate.

We live in a 2 story single-family home with a big yard and a field behind our home. We have 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. Your baby will have his or her own room and will share a bathroom with Nina. The yard has a cute play corner with a house, sandbox, and slide. We spend a lot of time in the yard – like to bbq, play in the yard , stargaze in the evenings and the past few years Zsofia really got into gardening. Nothing better than showing our daughter how to harvest our home grown vegetables we planted together.

Just a few minutes walking from our house we have a playground and also an 11 miles long scenic trail, where we bike and walk most days. We find fresh air really important, so we will have great walks with your baby. Nina would always fall asleep when we went for a walk as a baby and had the best naps.

There is a brand new community pool just a few minutes from us, we have been biking out on a hot summer day. There is a fun splash pad too. The community is near lots of farms that we visit for berry and apple picking and for all the fall activities. Our daughter loves farm animals, so we are regulars now at a farm nearby where we can learn about animals, feed them, and care for them.  Our town has a really cute downtown with good restaurants. From June until September, they also have fun events over the weekend, including farmers market and concerts that we often visited.

We have several lakes in the area, but one of them is only about 6 minutes away, so we frequently ended up there on a very hot summer day as it has a great little sandy beach area for kids.

>

<

Our Family

Our daughter, Nina was born in mid-2020 so she is a toddler now. She is such a loving, always smiling and playful child. She loves playing with her dolls, asking us to read a book, walking our dogs and going on bike rides. She quickly adapted our love for the outdoors, and she enjoys whatever activities we do. We encourage her to try different activities – right now she is doing gymnastics and ballet. She’s having fun and they help with her motor skills. She is getting really good at both. Because we introduced her to different types of homemade food from fresh ingredients, she is such a good eater. She loves playing with her toy kitchen – lots of pretend which helps with her creativity and vocabulary. This is the way we would raise your child too.

Nina goes to a daycare near our home 3 days a week and we pick her up around 3 or 3:30PM. She has made some great friends there, so together with the other moms, we often take the girls on play dates. One of our neighbor’s sons goes to the same class as well.

We have 2 dogs. Fluffy is a shih tzu. She is 8 years old, moved with us from Hungary. She is so sweet and very lazy, except when she’s snooping around for food. We adopted Rocky from a local shelter as a puppy. He is 4 years old now. He is a mix of German shepherd and husky. Both of the dogs love Nina and they are so protective of her. Nina enjoys helping with the dogs – giving them their food, putting on their leashes. She always cuddles them and often puts her baby on Rocky’s back and tells him that he is a horse now.

Zsofia’s family lives in Budapest, Hungary. Her parents are happily married still after 48 years, and they are wonderful grandparents. They often come to visit us in the US. When Zsofia’s maternity leave ends, her Mom will come for a few weeks to help out, so your baby would not need to go to daycare until about 7 months.

Zsofia has an older sister with 2 children. She has an aunt and uncle in the countryside where we love to go for a day, as usually the whole family gets together then and it means lots of fun and great food. Zsofia’s brother is a pastry chef, currently living in Scotland with his wife.

Brian’s dad lives in the Netherlands, near Amsterdam. Unfortunately, his mom passed away when Brian was very young. His dad also often visits us. Brian has a big family living in the Netherlands: cousins, aunts and uncles. We always have such a great time with them when everyone gets together. Brian’s sister lives in Australia with her Australian husband and 2 young sons (4 and 6). Although we don’t see each other too often in person, we facetime every week. He also has a family nearby in the US, one of his cousins lives just an hour from us and recently welcomed a baby boy to the family.

Although most of our families live in Europe, we visit them every year at least once, as well they visit us regularly.

>

<

Our Lifestyle

Zsofia works for a big tech company as a business analyst, while Brian is in the logistics field. We both have a hybrid work schedule, where the majority of the time we are home and only go to the office once or twice a week. Zsofia’s company offers a great maternity leave that offers close to 5 months off.

After work, we always go for a family walk with the dogs and, depending on the weather, we play outside until dinner time. We like to cook together, but after a long day, we sometimes order in. Bedtime routine has been the same for our daughter since she was born – bubble bath, story time and cuddles. This is what we would continuing with your baby too.

On Saturdays Nina has ballet class in the morning, but we always plan something fun for the afternoon. When it is rainy, we either stay home and make crafts or we go to an indoor playhouse that’s about 20 minutes from us. If everyone feels lazy, we just watch a movie. If we are very busy on Saturday, we like to have a more relaxing Sunday or vice versa. We like to do our grocery shopping on Sunday for the following week.

>

<

Family Traditions

With Zsofia being from Hungary and Brian is from The Netherlands we try to incorporate the languages, the foods and the traditions to our everyday lives in the US. Nina has been very good at understanding all 3 languages and we will raise your baby trilingual as well.

Small traditions like cooking and eating together are definitely something we would carry on. Most of the time, we listen to music, sing and cook together. We have one of these kitchen stands where Nina can stand up safely and be part of cooking, since she is eager to help with mixing food. Your baby will grow up being part of this little family tradition as well. Zsofia enjoyed making Nina’s baby food from scratch, and she will do the same with your baby to ensure they get nutritious food made with love.

We both grew up playing board games with our families, and that is something we look forward to doing with our children as they get older. Evening bedtime routines always include story time and we recap the best moments of the day. We celebrate all the major holidays with some Hungarian or Dutch traditions added to them. On Easter we paint Easter eggs and hunt for them. On 4th of July, we usually get together with friends and we BBQ. Zsofia is a big fan of Halloween, so she starts decorating on 1st of October. Since we became parents, we go trick-or-treating with friends and always dress up in a theme.

We celebrate St Nicholas, which is a tradition in Europe. On December 5, children put their cleaned boots in the window, so St Nicholas can fill them up with sweets or small goodies if they are on the good list. For Christmas Zsofia likes to keep a tradition where the parents decorate the tree at night as a surprise for the children. We like to decorate our home inside and outside and get into the holiday spirit with all kinds of activities – creating Christmas decorations, and visiting a light show or Christmas parade.

>

<

Our Vacations

Ever since we met, we enjoyed traveling together. We visited Brian’s sister in Australia, discovered Asia and spent long weekends in different European countries while living overseas.

Every year we fly to Europe to visit our families and spend about a month there splitting time in Hungary and the Netherlands where we are from. We cannot wait for the moment when we can take this trip as a family of 4 and introduce your baby to our big families.

We also like to have weekends away once or twice a year in Wisconsin or Michigan. During the summer though we often go for a day to the lake and make it a little staycation. For Thanksgiving we usually travel to see Brian’s uncle and his family in New York.

With the big family that we have, there is always a wedding to travel to so we try to plan our vacations around them. This past year we went to weddings in France, Hungary and in California.

>

<

Our Relationship with You

Our relationship with you is important to our family. You will be part of our family and continue to be part of your child’s world. We promise to share information about milestones, pictures and videos with you. We are incredibly grateful for the gift and willingness to trust us to raise your child and we will love you and cultivate a caring relationship.

We quickly connected with the birth parents of our daughter due to our similarities. It was mainly Zsofia who had almost daily contact with the birth mom and they still communicate on a weekly/bi weekly basis. We openly shared about the nursery, some of our plans and the name choices. We also received lots of family photos from the birth parents, which we have made into an album for our daughter. The open communication and the relationship we built made this adoption journey seamless. We met after our baby was born, and we were able to say thank you in person for their selfless act of trusting us with their baby and making our dream come true.

We have frequent communication with our daughter’s birth mom and have been in each other’s lives through social media that gives her a piece of mind seeing her child growing up.

We will have the same intentions with you with having open communication and we can build a relationship if that is also what you are looking for.

>

<

Our Promise to You

First and foremost, we promise to cherish and celebrate your role in this child’s life. We understand that you are entrusting us with a precious gift, and we pledge to create an environment filled with
love, warmth, and support. Your child will know their story from the beginning, embracing the beautiful tapestry of their heritage and the incredible woman who gave them life.

Every decision we make for your child will be rooted in their best interests. We commit to providing them with a stable and nurturing home, where they can flourish emotionally, intellectually, and
creatively. We will encourage them to explore their passions, embrace diversity, and cultivate a strong sense of self.

He or she will be truly loved, not just by Brian, Myself and Nina, but by our families (Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins). We’ll always be by his/her side to guide through life, support throughout all of life’s ups and downs, and lead by example.

Our promise extends to you as well. We will always honor your unique role in our family and treat you with the respect, empathy, and kindness you deserve. Your journey will forever be intertwined with ours, and we are here to support you, listen to you, and learn from you.

In closing, we want to convey our heartfelt gratitude for considering us as potential parents for your child. We understand that this decision is profound, and we are ready to embrace it with unwavering commitment and love. Together, we can shape a future that holds endless opportunities and immeasurable love for your child.