Michael and Kathryn

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From Us to You

We are so grateful you are considering us and we appreciate that you are allowing us the time to connect with you.

First and foremost, we respect you. While we will never truly understand what you are experiencing, we pray that you feel supported and at peace as you consider what is best for you and your child. If adoption becomes part of your path, we would be honored to be considered as a family for your child.

We plan to be open and honest with your child about their story. We want them to always know how deeply you love them and, if adoption becomes part of their story, that your love for them has always been at the heart of it. Both our daughter Harper, who was born through IVF, and a child who may join our family through adoption, will each have their own unique story, surrounded by so much love. If you choose to make an adoption plan and feel that we could be the right family for your child, we would welcome ongoing communication so you can know how they are doing and see them grow. We hope to provide a loving home alongside two parents, a sibling, and two playful pups who adore children and would be a special part of their life. They will also be surrounded by extended family and friends, who work to spend time with us as much as they can! We also do family vacations to many places, especially Disney which is a personal favorite of ours!

Finally, we want you to know that we love you and want to support you in any way that we can. We understand that this process may not be an easy road to walk. As a military family nearing retirement from the Navy, we feel grateful for the stability and security we have built for our family. We are prepared to grow our family and hope to provide a child with a loving, supportive home where they will be cared for physically, emotionally, and throughout every stage of life.

With love,
Michael and Kathryn

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Why We Are Choosing to Adopt

From the first time we went on a date, we talked about kids and how we both wanted to be parents. After we married, we spent two years hoping to grow our family before pursuing IVF, which brought us our daughter, Harper. We later transferred our second embryo, however they were never Earthside. Katie has worked with different foster care and adopted children with her churches in California. She has always had adoption on her heart, so it was something we talked about early in our relationship. We both knew adoption could be a meaningful way for us to grow our family. We love being parents to Harper and hope to welcome another child into our family someday. We are open to a child of any gender or race and simply hope to provide a loving, supportive home where a child can grow and thrive. We are so grateful to be on this adoption journey and, if you choose adoption and feel we could be the right family for your child, we would be honored to be considered.

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Lifestyle

We are a military family that loves spending time together and making our daughter smile. We enjoy being involved in community events and are continuing to build connections in our community, which we’ve called home for the past year. Harper takes a gymnastics tumbling class and we enjoy going to the Thursday night farmers markets. We love to explore our surroundings and go camping in our truck camper. We also love taking our dogs to the dog park with friends and their dogs, and really love the beach. Our dogs love to run in the water!! We enjoy spending time in our backyard as we have it set up for Harper, with a slide, water table, small pool, trampoline and swing. We would love to welcome another child into the fun things we do as a family and watch them build a special relationship with Harper.

Bucket list –

1. Visit all 50 states
2. Have goats and chickens
3. Have a farm stand in front of our property
4. Fish as many different lakes as possible

5. Visit every Disney park

6. Have a tree house attached to a play set for the kids

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About Katie by Michael

Katie is a very supportive person who is always there no matter how hard your situation is. She was there through all my deployments, supporting and giving me peace of mind that everything back home was taken care of. She has always wanted a large family and children have always been her priority. She works hard to make sure Harper has the best childhood ever. She got us season passes to the Fresno Zoo so we always have something to do year round. She recently enrolled Harper in gymnastics class. Others always come first with Katie.

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About Michael by Katie

Michael is one of the best guys I know. He is the yin to my yang! He is my rock and my anchor when things get busy and hectic. I love how playful he is with Harper and yet how respectful he is with her. He teaches her how to treat others including being kind to other children. He is so easy going and helps me relax more as the days go by. Michael is a trustworthy friend who works hard to be in communication with his friends and family, especially with us moving around as we have with the military. He is looking forward to retirement and having more time at home with Harper, and hopes to one day share that time, love, and fun with another child as our family grows.

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Meet Harper

Harper is our two-year-old daughter. She is really into babies and loves making sure they are fed and cuddled. She is excited to have a baby as much as a 2-year-old can understand. Harper is loving and easy going, but shy around new people. She loves to cuddle, snuggle, dance and laugh over silly things.

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Our Home

At the moment we live in a town in California. We have fixed up the back yard to be a kids play land with turf, slides, swings, water play, and plants to set a relaxing atmosphere. Since we are a military family, we don’t plan on staying here after Michael retires. We are still trying to figure out where our final home will be. Our top choices moving locations are Nevada, Florida, or Tennessee since we have family and or friends in those locations.

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Our Family

Michael’s two sisters, one brother, and their spouses and children all live in Florida. We always make a yearly trip there, which almost always includes a fishing trip of some sort. His grandmother also lives in Florida, and she loves to see us and play with Harper every chance she gets. As part of being in the military for 17 years, he has friends all over the United States whom he counts as family. The two friends he is closest with live in Tennessee and Texas.

Katie has a few friends spread out across California, where she lived most of her life, as well as Nevada and Washington, where she was stationed with Michael. She keeps in close contact with them, attends major events like weddings, and visits as often as she can. She also has one sister who lives in Nevada, where her mom and stepdad live. Her dad and stepmom have recently moved to Tennessee to be closer to other family. Katie is also close to her sister-in-law and nieces in Vegas and spends two weeks during the summer at her mom’s house with them, so Harper gets lots of cousin time!

Racial & Cultural Diversity

As a military family, we have moved around a lot and have both worked with people from many different cultures throughout the United States and around the world. We can’t say that we have experienced or know everything about other cultures, but our time in the military has allowed us to build close relationships with people from many different backgrounds who we can learn from and turn to for support.

If your child is of a different race, culture, or ethnicity than ours, we would do our best to make sure their culture and heritage remain an important part of their life. We are both Caucasian and are open to continuing to learn and understand how we can thoughtfully honor and incorporate your child’s culture and ethnicity into our family and their everyday life.

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Traditions

We have many family traditions and are always open to adding new things as our family grows, whether that be big events or weekly dinner plans. Katie’s mother always puts on a Christmas cookie weekend. This event lasts about three days, during which thousands of cookies are made! On the final day, all the kids come to the house and decorate sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles. One tradition within this is that the first year a child is allowed to have icing, we give them their first sugar cookie with blue icing and let them decorate it. We call it “smurfing” them because by the time they are done, they are covered in blue frosting.

We also have standing dinner nights on Saturday evenings and family breakfast dates on Sunday mornings. We are still newer to celebrating holidays as a family and are creating traditions to make them special for all of us, but especially for Harper. Katie loves to decorate for every holiday and loves letting Harper help!

We can’t wait to grow our family and would also look forward to learning about and honoring any cultural or ethnic traditions that are important to a future child and making sure they remain a meaningful part of their life.

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Our Pets

We have two lab mix doggies, named Laney and MoMo. Laney is 7 and MoMo is 5, and Harper loves them. We continue to work hard with both the dogs and Harper to foster love and respectful boundaries between them. We love our dogs with our whole heart and love taking them with us when we go places, like camping or the beach.

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Our Promise to You

Our promise to you is that, if you choose us, we will love your child to the best of our abilities and respect you and the relationship we may build together. We want this to be a positive experience for everyone involved and, above all, want your child to always feel loved and cared for. We thank you for considering us. We have so much love to give and hope we have the opportunity to share that love with a child. We promise to encourage them to dream big and, most of all, teach them to respect and appreciate the world around them. We pray that we can be good stewards in a child’s life and, if chosen to become parents through adoption, help them see the many ways God has blessed our family.

In Closing: We would like to thank you for taking the time to get to know us and consider our family. We would be grateful for the opportunity, if you choose us, to grow our family through adoption. Our family, including our extended family, has so much love to share. We promise to give a child one hundred percent of our hearts and provide them with the same love, support, and opportunities we give Harper. We hope we have the opportunity to get to know you and your child and to build a relationship together in whatever way feels right for you.