Our lifestyle is one centered around family and relaxing. We are both very close and involved with our families (we have eight nieces and nephews) and visit with them as much as possible. We never miss a birthday, special event, or holiday and will often find any excuse to get together even if it's just for a grill out or 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 or movies in our pajamas while snuggled up with our 2 cats. We have a fireplace in our house and during the winter it is lit every chance we get. During the summer we like to go outside and relax on our deck.

In our own time Natalie enjoys going for long walks when she gets the chance or reading when she is relaxing, and Nick is often outside enjoying frisbee golf or inside playing video games.

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, 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 do everything possible to help them develop skills and work towards their milestones. 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 of grief for her to let go of the idea of having a child naturally. We both had so much love to give and we both accepted that we just wanted kids no matter how we became a family. We looked into IVF but decided it was too risky, not only for Natalie's health but for our hearts too. Surrogacy didn't feel right to us either. Natalie's sister fostered infant twins and we talked to her a lot about the process of getting certified and what it was like with the court system. While fostering is a beautiful and wonderful thing, it also didn't feel right to us. We wanted more permanence, and we couldn't take falling in love with a child only to have to give them back to their parents or guardian. Adoption has always been a beautiful option and it's an option that feels right to both of us. We have made a beautiful home together and have so much love to share. We have always wanted children and can't think of a more incredible way to share that love and become a family than through adoption.

To address cultural diversity, we would start by just being open about everything. We want to try to be open about the child's culture and not confine them to our own culture. With that we would make sure to get involved in our community and a diversity of parents in order to help give the child friends, role models, and other support systems with similar culture they can connect with. We both grew up in mixed race communities and still have connections to those communities. For where that isn't enough and because we also realize that nobody is perfect, so are doing our best to learn what we can about cultures we are less familiar with and to find resources to utilize. We just want to be the most prepared for any questions or difficulties the child may have. We will try our best to make sure the child doesn't feel ostracized or alone and has connections to their own culture.

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 sister. His mother is divorced and he is only close with that side of the family. His grandparents are very close and involved. Nick's older sister has a 10-year-old son. When we get together we enjoy grilling out and games such as bingo, trivia, and board games. While Nick's family isn't very unique, we are very close and are always meeting up or talking to each other.

Natalie is the youngest of four sisters. Sadly Natalie's mom passed away recently. Each of her sisters have formed their own families and we now have six nieces and one nephew on this side of the family. Her brother-in-law and 3 of her nieces are deaf so we have gotten to learn about and acclimate ourselves with deaf culture and American sign language.

We both grew up in the same hometown, so the majority of both our families are only 90 minutes away. Due to this, we are able to see both our families for major holidays. When we get together with Natalie's family, we spend most of our time entertaining the children through various activities like games, coloring, or playing outside. Between our two families, we are visiting or hosting get togethers at least once a month. We have shared our adoption plans with them our families are very excited to have a new 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 putting your child up for adoption. We can't even begin to fathom how emotional and difficult this decision has been for you and no matter how grateful we are we will always put ourselves in your shoes and respond with empathy and compassion.

We have known each other since we were 13 but have been together for 12 devoted years and have been happily married for 6 of those years. We have always wanted kids and have always dreamed of being the best possible parents we could be. We've always known that because of infertility our path to becoming parents would be different and that we would have a lot of decisions to make. While we watched so many experience the joy of having kids, we took our time making decisions about how we would start a family and how we would navigate adoption and all the expectations and decisions that come with it. Everything that we have worked towards and every decision we have made has been for a child who will be so very loved and 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 this house, and we would love to share photos and updates with you. We promise to keep in touch with letters or email, whichever you feel more comfortable with, as well as phone calls. We are also flexible in discussing future 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 pick 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 have a family is the same as everyone who is anxiously awaiting to be picked, but if you pick 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 the 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 make sure this child knows and understands this. We could spend the rest of our lives caring for this child and giving them all the unconditional love and support that we could offer, and it wouldn't even come close to the amount of unconditional love that you have shown in the sacrifice that comes with choosing to put a child up for adoption. That kind of unconditional love is something that will stay with them and we will do everything that we can to help the child understand this.

Just know that whether you go through with the adoption or not, or even if you don't pick us, and even if we never even meet, you have our utmost respect. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

Nick & Natalie