Our lifestyle is one centered around family and relaxing. We are both very close and involved with our families, especially when it comes to our eight nieces and nephews. We live ninety minutes away but we visit as much as possible. We never miss a birthday, holiday, or special event and will often find any excuse to get together even if it's just to grill out or have a bonfire. Family is a priority even if it's just us. We take the time to go out to dinner once a week to connect with each other and to keep our relationship and communication strong. At home we like to relax and watch TV and movies together in our pajamas while snuggled up with our two cats Mouse and ZuZu. We have a fireplace that we use every chance we get in the winter and during the summer we enjoy sitting on the deck or using our firepit on our patio.

In our own time Natalie enjoys walking on the trail nearby, playing with her camera at the park, or reading when she's relaxing. Nick is often outside playing frisbee golf or playing video games while relaxing.

When we are fortunate enough to become parents, Natalie plans on leaving her job to be a stay-at-home mom. As much as she loves her job working with adults with disabilities, she has always wanted to be a mother and doesn't want to miss a minute of it. Natalie wants to be there to watch the child grow and to do everything possible to help them develop skills and work towards their milestones. Nick is eager to start a family as well and is grateful that his job is not only stable enough to support them but is also very flexible so that he can be just as involved with the child's daily life. Our own family will be our biggest priority.

Natalie was born with a chromosomal defect called Turner Syndrome. While she was lucky enough to be completely healthy, one of the effects of Turner Syndrome is infertility. It was a long journey for her to process the grief and for her to let go of the idea of having a child naturally. Nick always said he wanted kids but the only thing that was important to him was that he had Natalie by his side. We both have so much love to give and we both accepted that we wanted kids no matter how we become a family.

We looked into IVF but decided it was too risky, not only for Natalies's health, but our hearts too. Surrogacy didn't feel right to us either. The more we talked about adoption and the more research we did, the more adoption felt right for us. Adoption has always been a beautiful option and we are very excited to move forward with our plans to adopt. We have made a beautiful, loving, and peaceful home together and we have so much love to share. We have always wanted children and we can't think of a more incredible way to share our love and become a family than through adoption.

Cultural diversity is something that gave us pause as we reflected on the importance of community and connection. We want to ensure that we get involved with the community and a diversity of parents to provide the child with a community of friends, role models, and other support systems with a similar culture that they could connect with. We are also grateful for all the resources available so that we can be as prepared as possible for any questions or difficulties that the child may have. We are prepared to utilize available resources whenever the child may need extra support.

We have personally seen first-hand just how important community is with our brother-in-law and our nieces and their connection to the deaf community and what a difference it makes. Our family coming together to learn American Sign Language and learning about Deaf culture from my brother-in-law has been an eye opening experience. We want to be open about the child's culture and celebrate it instead of confining them to our own.

We live in central Illinois. Our house is a three-bedroom and three-bathroom house with a finished basement. We have a decent-sized yard with a deck, patio, and firepit area.

Our house is located in friendly area with lots of families, so connecting with other children would never be a problem.

Even though the local schools are a very short drive away, our house is actually one of the stops for the school bus that comes by every morning.

Our neighborhood has a nice bike path in it that leads to a couple small parks and one big park. The nearby parks have plenty of walking, dog areas, jungle gyms, and one park is large enough to even have an observatory and restaurant in it.

While we don't have a pool at our house, swimming is something we both grew up enjoying and there are plenty of public pool options that we can utilize nearby.

We both grew up being close with our families. Nick is a middle child in between his two sisters. We are both very close with Nick's grandparents who are the center of the family. Nick's mom is very close with all three of her children and is incredibly supportive. Nick's older sister has a son who was born in 2014. When we are together we enjoy grilling out and playing games. We are all very close and are always meeting up or talking to each other.

Natalie is the youngest of four daughters. Sadly Natalie's mom passed away in 2023 which was hard on the family. Each of Natalie's sisters are married with kids making get-togethers boisterous and fun. We love spending time with all kids and keeping them entertained with various activities like games, coloring, or playing outside. As a family we have also gotten to learn about and acclimate ourselves with deaf culture and American Sign Language for our brother-in-law and three nieces who are deaf.

We both grew up in the same hometown about ninety minutes away and the majority of both of our families live there still. Between both sides of the family we get together at least once a month. We have shared our adoption plans with our families and they are all excited to have another child to dote on.

There are no words adequate enough to thank you or to explain how much it means to us that you would even consider us as you contemplate the heavy decision of placing your child for adoption. We can't even begin to fathom how emotional and difficult it has been for you. No matter how grateful we are, we promise to always respond with empathy and compassion.

We have known each other since seventh grade but didn't start dating until after highschool in 2012 and have been devoted to each other ever since. We have been happily married since 2017. We have always wanted kids and have always dreamed of being the best possible parents we could be. We've always known that our path to becoming parents would be different and that we would have a lot of decisions to make. We took our time making decisions about how we would start a family and carefully considered how we would navigate adoption and all the expectations, conversations, and decisions that came with it. Everything we've worked towards and every decision we have made has been for a child who will be so very loved and so very special to us. Going forward we will always put the child's needs above our own.

We promise that you won't be just a name or an image on a photograph. You won't be just a story to this child but an integral part of the child's story and life. Photographs are especially important in our house and we would love to share photos and updates with you. We promise to keep in touch with emails and phone calls, whatever you feel most comfortable with. We are also flexible with discussing visits. You are important to this child, and you are important to us.

We can't even begin to explain how much it means to us if you choose us or how grateful we would be for the rest of our lives. No matter what family you may consider, this child will be loved and cared for, and I know our ache to become parents and to have a family is the same as everyone anxiously awaiting. But if you choose us this child will be our whole world. We desperately want to go through it all, the roller coaster of emotions, the delicate web of beautiful moments and the difficult moments all spun together with love. We are under no illusion that parenting will be easy, but we want so badly to go through it all and know it's the best thing we could ever do in our lives.

Your decision to make such an enormous sacrifice speaks more than words can say about just how much this child is loved and we will always do everything we can to help this child understand this. We could spend the rest of our lives caring for this child and give them all of the unconditional love and support that we could offer, and it wouldn't come close to the amount of unconditional love that you have shown in the sacrifice that comes with choosing adoption. That kind of love is something that will stay with them and we will do everything we can to honor that. Just know that whether you go through with the adoption or not, you have our utmost respect. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

Nick & Natalie