Nicholas and Katie

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From Us to You

First, thank you for considering us. We can’t imagine how this feels for you, but hope you know that your brave and selfless gift will give a lifetime of joy to the family you choose. Our greatest wish is to start a family and we hope that we can provide the life and loving home that you want for your baby. We would love to have you continue to be a part of your child’s life, though we are open to whatever relationship you choose. Regardless, we promise that your child will always know the incredibly strong woman who brought them into this world.

We’ve known each other for nine years, brought together by two of our friends who, when they met Nick, immediately declared that they had found the one for Katie. We spent that first year getting to know each other and building a friendship while our larger mutual friend group waited for us to figure out what they already clearly saw; that we were each other’s perfect match. We found in each other a partner to share in all the adventures we both love, including anything outdoors, like biking, camping, and skiing, to exploring as many new cultures and places as we can. We’ve been fortunate to travel the world together, but just as important to both of us is our life at home and building connections to our community and our friends.

We are so blessed to have so many wonderful people who support us and are remarkable role models for us on this journey to parenthood. We have had the gift of being surrounded by many children of our siblings and dear friends and know, without question, that unconditional love grows wherever hearts are open. Our hearts are open.

There are six nieces and nephews who always ask about their future cousin when we gather at Christmas and every summer at Katie’s family cabin in upstate New York. Long days of running through the woods and jumping off rocks into the St. Lawrence River usually end with us all piled in someone’s room retelling our favorite parts of the day. Nick has one sister and her husband who live nearby, Katie’s parents are retired and come to visit for two months every year and Nick’s parents, who came here to help us renovate our house, plan to move back soon. We know that will happen quickly when their first grandchild gets here! We also have many close friends that are like family to us and we gather weekly for “Sunday dinner” at each other’s homes to share good food and great company. We even chose to get married in a friend’s backyard so we could be closely surrounded by our loved ones. Your child will be welcomed by a supportive and loving community.

Together with our parents, we renovated a house and turned it into our perfect home for the family we’ve been dreaming about. Six of our closest friends live within two blocks of us, which means daily drop-ins that remind us of how lucky we are to someday raise our family here. We love that our neighborhood remains one of the most diverse in the area and that we live within blocks of multiple parks, schools and fun restaurants and shops. We walk and bike to most places so this neighborhood is ideal. We appreciate our city because it is rich in both culture and nature, with its access to the beach, mountains and desert. A typical weekend would find us enjoying a relaxing morning, tackling a project on the house, going on some type of outdoor adventure and often times ending the day by making dinner with friends.

We have both chosen careers of service that we are passionate about. Nick continues to serve the country as a Navy helicopter pilot, though will be transitioning to supporting operations from the ground over the next few years. After 10 years of public health research dedicated to helping people adopt healthier behaviors, Katie decided to pursue her PhD in order to focus on understanding the impact our environments have on health in order to create healthier and more vibrant communities. She also volunteers extensively to advocate for safer and healthier spaces. We hope to be role models for our children (we hope for more than one!) in taking action to create a better world for all those in it.

From the time we started talking about having a family, we knew adoption was in our future. We thought it would be the way we expanded our family, but after trying for many years to have a child on our own, we made the decision to invest our time and resources into providing a loving home for a child already in this world. We’ve been preparing for this moment for many years by loving and nurturing the children in our family and friend group.

We’ve worked hard to build our careers, our community, and a home, but we’re still missing that final piece which is the joy that comes from having a family together. We will provide your child with as many opportunities as we can with regard to their education and experiences. We will instill a love of nature, a curiosity about the world and the people in it, a sense of kindness and compassion, a strong work ethic and the self-confidence that comes from growing up in a home full of love, joy, and stability.

There is no greater honor that we could receive than your faith in us to nurture this precious being. We would love to meet you and hear about what future you dream of for your child and to build a vision for this lifelong journey with you.

Katie & Nick

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Why We are Choosing to Adopt

We have a lot of love to give and think that a family is made, not born. When we first started talking about having a family together, we learned that we both shared an interest in adoption. We thought we would try to have a child together and then grow our family through adoption, but life had a different plan for us. After trying fertility treatments and lots of conversations about what we truly wanted, we decided to put our focus on adopting instead of spending more effort on a biological child. We want to share our life and love for each other with a family and couldn’t feel more strongly about putting all that love toward a child already in the world who needs a loving home. That decision felt right when we made it years ago, and our commitment and excitement for adoption has remained strong. We have a close family member who made the tough choice to place a child for adoption when she was younger. We’re grateful that she’s shared what that process was like for her and the many years since. This has given us a much better awareness of the perspective of everyone involved, not just our own experience. We hope that will help us support not just each other and our future child, but also you, their birth mom, as we all navigate this relationship together.

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About Katie

Katie is the center of our families and our friend group where she inspires us all to be a little more kind, more informed, more selfless and more engaged by her example. When we were just friends her approachability gave me the courage to try to keep up with her as she rode her bike everywhere, was becoming a Public Health expert and pursuing a doctorate, proposed amazing trips and adventures and was always there for friends and family in every aspect of their life. When we kissed at the campfire on one of those trips, I thought I was really going to have to step it up to keep up with her in a relationship. As our romance grew, I realized it wasn’t a competition to accomplish the most or have the most epic adventures for Katie. She is just generous with her incredible gifts to others. She is absolutely brilliant, and still she has no hesitation in admitting when she doesn’t know something, though she always knows how to go about figuring it out or finding the person who can. Whether it’s a defending a PhD or completely renovating a house, she tackles hard tasks methodically and capably. When her friends have hard problems; with heartache or illness or disappointment, they come to her to help address them and so do I. When anyone is in need, she is there to find the solution and give whatever help is necessary to achieve it. And when there is something to celebrate, she always remembers no matter how small and creates the space for everyone to share their gratitude and joy. That joy we have in our life will grow even more with the adoption of a child into our family and the boundless love she gives as a friend, a sister and an aunt will be even more powerful as a mother. She is absolutely beautiful, inside and out, and I can’t contain my excitement to be able to share the experience of leading a little one into the world with her.

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About Nick

I can remember really clearly when I fell in love with Nick. We had been getting to know each other within our larger friend group doing a lot of fun things around town. But it wasn’t until we started taking trips together that I got to see who he really was on the inside. I remember one trip specifically where he and I were both excited to go mountain biking and took several of our friends who were less experienced. He probably did twice as many miles that day as he constantly kept riding back to make sure that everyone was doing okay and no one was left behind. He cares first about everyone else’s needs before his own and doesn’t wait to be asked to offer to help someone.  As the oldest of four siblings, he’s probably always been this way. He’s also dedicated himself to serving our country and has never been anything but gracious about the sacrifice that has required.  He’s incredibly sweet, patient and kind and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard him complain. Nick is also one of the smartest and most capable people I know. We jokingly refer to him as “Nickipedia” as he has an incredible amount of knowledge about almost any topic and can figure out how to do anything. Whether it’s fixing the electrical system on our old Westfalia or jumping on a surfboard, he’s just good at everything he does. He’s more reserved than me but shares a very silly side with those he’s closest with. My favorite moments are seeing what things make him laugh so hard he cries. He is incredibly respectful and I love that we can communicate completely honestly and calmly with each other about anything, big or small. He has been so supportive of making sure I follow all my dreams and I love that we are constantly scheming and dreaming about the life we want to build together. I know from experience what an incredible partner Nick is to me and I know in my heart what an amazing dad he’s going to make.

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How a Child will Enrich our Lives

We both grew up with close-knit families and want the chance to extend those traditions and memories with our own children. Whether it’s the patter of little feet running down the hall on Christmas morning, summer trips to our family cabin, lazy Sunday mornings, or driving all over to watch sports or music events, we can’t wait to experience all the small and significant moments in life.

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Our Home

Our home is very special to us. We purchased it in the fall of 2017 and, together with Nick’s parents, did a full renovation. It was a lot of work, but we now get to live in the home that we dreamed up and literally built with our own hands. We designed it with our future family in mind, so there are two bedrooms for kids that we can’t wait to fill! It’s bright, airy and we have a big, open kitchen and living room area as we love to cook and have our friends and their kids over. We have a piano that also brings people together to belt out our favorite tunes!

We have a large private backyard area and this year we built a deck, garden and planted a lot of trees to make it a great place to hang out! We love our neighborhood for so many reasons. First, several of our best friends live within two blocks of us. It makes it so easy to get together and share little moments like quick walks around the block or chats on the porch. We also love that it’s one of the more diverse neighborhoods in our city. There are lots of fun restaurants, parks and schools within walking or biking distance, which is how we prefer to get around.

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Our Families

We are both very close with our families and love spending time with our parents and siblings. One of Nick’s sisters lives nearby with her husband and their parents lived here while helping us renovate our house.  They, along with his other siblings, visit a couple times a year and plan to move back within the year. Katie has two older brothers who have six kids among them. One of our most cherished trips is getting everyone together every summer at their family cabin.  All of our family, but especially our nieces and nephews, are anxiously awaiting newest family member. Katie’s mom is already knitting in preparation! Having been the aunt and uncle for so many years, we can’t wait to see the special relationships our child will develop with our siblings and parents. Whether it’s Katie’s dad teaching them how to fish, or Nick’s sisters training them to be Olympic runners, they will be surrounded by a loving and dedicated family.

We are also fortunate to have a group of incredibly close friends where we live. We’ve known each other for many years and the group has now expanded to include lots of new kiddos. Our friends have been on this journey with us to start our family and are so excited to welcome a new addition! Most weekends there’s an exchange of tools and a helpful hand or vegetables from someone’s garden. We see each other regularly and it’s a great feeling to know we have so many people we share so much of our life with and can rely on.

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Family Traditions

We have kept alive the traditions we had with our families growing up. They were incredible examples of bringing together family and friends to share and celebrate life. We’re so lucky to live around the corner from Nick’s parents and his sister’s family (and their new baby!). Katie’s parents and our other siblings are on the East Coast and in the Mid-West. Fortunately, we have maintained yearly trips to keep traditions alive. We make sure we are with family someplace snowy for Christmas so we can really celebrate the season of giving and gratitude, sledding and snowballs and as much elf mischief for the little kids as possible. Katie especially comes alive, even ringing sleigh bells outside our nieces and nephews’ windows as they go to bed to get them excited for Christmas morning. We also make an annual summer trip to her parents’ cabin on the St. Lawrence River. Her extended family all gather for a week of swimming, boating, jumping off rocks, campfires and long days just being together. Nick’s family all joins for Thanksgiving together in Southern California and soaks up the sun and sand.

We’ve also made a lot of new traditions as a couple. We have regular “Sunday dinners” with our amazing group of friends and their kids, where everyone brings a dish to share. Lazy weekend mornings with donuts, sunsets at the beach during the summer, watching fireworks over the ocean on the 4th of July, and other small things make us so grateful to have found each other and excited to have a family together so we can share these traditions and build more

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How We Met

We met through our friends, which is the best way to meet someone to spend the rest of your life with! Nick moved into the same building as Katie’s best friends and they immediately declared that they’d found “the one.” There were a lot of “not so chance” encounters to bring us together, which are pretty funny to look back on now. But it worked, and a spark formed pretty much right away. We took time building our relationship though, which drove our friends crazy since they had already decided we were meant to be. Our romance was built on a strong friendship that came first. It was easy to spend time together since we both loved many of the same things and a mutual group of friends built in!

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What Attracted us to Each Other

Right away, Nick saw how dynamic, capable and brilliant Katie is. And Nick’s confidence, intelligence and life as a helicopter pilot quickly caught Katie’s attention! Being introduced by mutual friends and becoming friends ourselves let us realize how compatible our interests and values are. It also helped to have the same circle of friends nudging us towards a romance! Once we took that step, Nick also saw intimately how kind, selfless and sweet Katie is. She just dives in and gets things done, in work, with friends and in love, she is fearless and decisive, always moving towards her goals. For Katie, it took time to get to see who Nick really was on the inside, which is the most kind, patient, silly and capable person around. When we saw how our much we had in common in all aspects of life, we didn’t hesitate to jump in to chase even more exciting dreams together.

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Our Lifestyle

“Active” is probably the best way to describe our lifestyle; active with our friends and families, active in our community, and active physically. We love spending time in our home that we built and with the family and friends who surround us. We also love the outdoors and experiencing new places and adventures. We both work during the week and try to maximize our evenings and weekends. Katie has a more flexible work schedule and mainly works from home, whereas Nick works a more typical 9 to 5 schedule. Katie loves to cook and bake and luckily Nick loves to eat! The weekends include activities with friends and family and usually some type of project around the house. Our friends all have children that we spend a lot of time with and we can’t wait to add our growing family to the mix! We’re lucky to live in Southern California near the beach, so we try to get a bike ride together to see the ocean on weekends. We have a camper van for camping on the beach or in the nearby mountains. We love to squeeze in a longer road trip or travel to a new place where we can experience a new place and culture.

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On a Typical 3-Day Weekend

If only all weekends were 3 days! Weekends typically involve a mix of relaxing with each other, hanging out with family and friends, a bike ride or trip to the beach, some type of project around the house and, if we have an extra day off, then we usually are on some type of adventure in nature. We have a 1980s Westfalia camper van that makes getting on the road really easy so we’ll head to the mountains for camping and mountain biking or to the beach. We’re lucky to live somewhere that is so close to both the mountains and the ocean! Most weekends end with us gathering for “Sunday Dinner” with our friends and their kids. We rotate houses and everyone brings a dish to share. Katie’s latest “hobby” is roller skating in a beautiful public park in our city where people from all walks of life come together to skate, listen to music and have a great time!

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Our Vacations and Leisure Time

Day to day, life is pretty simple. We make time to be with family and friends. We have a very family-focused group of friends that will be a great support to us when we finally have kids of our own. We both like to go running or biking for exercise and take walks in our neighborhood in the evening after work.

For vacation, we have both done a lot of traveling to experience new places and cultures. Before the pandemic, we’d been to Spain, Scotland, New Zealand, Japan, Denmark and Mexico together. But we equally love exploring the amazing U.S. We love visiting national parks and days spent hiking or biking, followed by jumping in a river or lake and watching the sun set. In the winter, it’s all about snow. We love to ski, snowboard and sled! Katie grew up in the country and loves small towns, but we both also love exploring cities from time to time We have a very similar interest in seeing places as the people who live there do, so we usually do a lot of exploring on our own, versus in big groups or on tours.

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Our Careers

We have both chosen careers of service that we are passionate about. Nick continues to serve the country as a Navy helicopter pilot, though will be transitioning to supporting operations from the ground over the next few years. Katie’s spent more than 10 years as a public health researcher. She’s focused on helping to create communities that support healthy lifestyles and social connection. She volunteers extensively to advocate for safer streets so that everyone can access what they need, whether it be jobs, health care, services or a great park. We hope to be role models for our children (we hope for more than one!) in taking action to create a better world for all those in it.

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Racial and Cultural Diversity

We are open to adopting a child of any race or ethnicity because we believe love is universal. We hope to instill a sense of self and confidence that comes with knowing you are loved and cherished. That being said, it is all too clear that there are painful differences in the way that people are treated based on how they look. The fact that we’ve both lived outside the U.S. and sought out different cultures throughout our lives doesn’t mean we experience the world in the same way that a child who looks different from us will. What we can commit to is helping our child understand where and whom they’ve come from and providing them a safe place and the support to building their own identity. We will ask our diverse group of friends to help guide us. This past year has called upon us all to look at ourselves, our beliefs, our relationships more closely and to work toward a more fair and just society.

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What We will Teach Your Child

We will teach them to be curious about the world and the people in it and to question how they can make it better. We will demonstrate the value of building and contributing to their community. We want them to learn the sense of accomplishment that comes from working hard to achieve something that matters to them. We hope they will develop a deep sense of gratitude, humility and compassion for others.

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What We will Tell your Child about You

We hope that you will get to share your story yourself and in your own way. We’d love for you to be a part of your child’s life so that they can understand your choice from your perspective. But, of course, we will respect your wishes as to what relationship you want to have. Know that however much or little we are in each other’s lives, your gift to us will always be central to our family. We believe in being open and honest with children and we will share as much about your life as you’d like us to.

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Our Promise to You

We promise that your child will be loved and cherished beyond measure. We have spent 6 long years hoping and praying for a child to enter our life, staying open to however and whenever that may happen. While we are grateful for the wonderful things we do have, more than anything, we are waiting for the magical day that we become parents. We can’t wait to share the love we have for each other with your child and to help them build their dreams, whatever they may be. You will forever be a part of their life and our family. While the way we stay connected is up to you, your story and our gratitude for you will be something your child knows from the beginning.