What does "Family Life" mean to you?
Family life for us is a combination of our daily lives and our family traditions. Because Chad and I are both teachers, we will be able to be with our child at home after school every day, take walks together at the park, play and watch sports together, enjoy dinner together, having nightly bedtime stories, and a calm child-centered home. Family life also includes family traditions. Chad and I come from different faith backgrounds, as I am Jewish and he is a non-denominational Christian. We will share our religious traditions at holidays and celebrate our family traditions together. We have a wonderful role model in my older brother who married a lovely Catholic woman, my sister-in-law Annette, and they have celebrated both their faiths and traditions together, adding a rich texture to their lives with their children. Chad and I hope to do the same with our family.
Describe your childhood:
Adoptive Mom?
I grew up with three other children in the family, two who were adopted and were from the same birthmother. My father was and still is a wonderful physician, though now retired. My mother was a school teacher. She also helped my dad in his office. We had a very typical upbringing in that during the years I was growing up, Mom stayed at home and Dad worked a lot. I had good relationships with all of my siblings. I was the youngest, so I think I didn’t have much sibling rivalry because everyone could beat me at everything!
Adoptive Dad?
I grew up in the great state of Minnesota and was born into a golfing and wrestling family. Both my grandpa and my dad were teachers and coached one sport or the other. I have one younger brother who I am very close with and look forward to seeing every time we go back. We both wrestled in high school, and still enjoy playing golf together. My mom worked a lot growing up while my dad went back to school. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and that makes me want to be the best provider I can be for our child.
Tell us about your home?
We live in a lovely neighborhood that was built only nine short years ago. We live right across the street from a beautiful and highly rated elementary school. Our house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. One bedroom is currently an office, and the other currently houses our doggie kennel and our exercise equipment. We are looking forward to devoting a lot of time and energy into redecorating that room for our little one. We have a nice fenced backyard with grass and an elevated wooden patio for our child to play outside. We also have a very pretty park just down the street from our home.
When you have a 3-day weekend, what do you like to do?
Chad and I love to spend time together working on projects around the house. I might like to do some gardening and re-pot some plants, and Chad might like to reorganize the garage, or power-wash the house. In fact, Chad loves to work around the house. When we are finished with our chores, we love to spend time in each other’s company. Chad is the chef of the family, so he’ll whip up a gourmet dinner and then we’ll enjoy watching several shows together from Battlestar Galactica or Law and Order to comedies like The Office or My Name is Earl. When we’re done, we usually like to fall asleep to a science show in the bedroom. The next day, we might take a day trip to my folks’ house, go to a ballgame with some friends, or take a day trip to our local mountain community.
Do you have pets? If so tell us about them?
We have two Mini-Dachshunds named Badger and ‘Sota who are filled with personality, though they are pretty short to the ground. Badger is the boy and likes to be with Mommy all the time. ‘Sota is the girl and is a little more independent and likes to hang out with Daddy. She’s the sweet one, and he’s the one who always gets into mischief. ‘Sota has a crush on our very old, black, furry cat named Kylie. She lies down in front of her and wags her tail. If the kitty is feeling friendly, she’ll give ‘Sota a bath. If she’s not feeling friendly, she may hiss at her and even stick her with a claw. ‘Sota might cry, but she still wags her tail and hopes that Kylie will change her mind and play with her.
What is your favorite food?
This is an impossible question to answer for me because my husband is such a good cook. For Chad, I can honestly say that anything that is barbequed is his favorite. If it is smothered in barbeque sauce, he’ll eat it.
What do you hope to teach your children?
Both my husband and I are teachers, and we could list a hundred things academically that he/she will learn, and that we will teach our child, but really that’s not the most important thing. First, we want our child to be loved and to be able give love to others. We want to teach our child the golden rule, to be of service to others, and to have a strong sense of him or herself, while being kind to others. We want our child to grow up to be a happy and fulfilled human being, whatever that means to him or her. We want to support our child’s desires to learn and grow in areas that are of interest to him or her. If those interests are similar to ours, that’s great because we’ll have a head start in helping our child achieve his or her goals. However, if those interests differ from ours, we want to support our child in being the unique individual and human being he or she was meant to be.
Do you play any musical instruments?
We only play Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and both of them pretty badly, but we have a blast. My father, however, plays classical piano. Though I had both violin and piano lessons, I never inherited the musical gene. Chad played the baritone in elementary and middle school.
Describe your neighborhood?
We live in a very family-oriented neighborhood with the neighborhood elementary school right across the street. Since our house was only built about nine years ago, and the school was built a few years after that, it is still fairly new and still beautiful. We have lots of kids in our neighborhood and a beautiful park close to our home.
Share something about your spouse that only you know:
Adoptive Mom?
Chad’s friends all believe he is very relaxed and calm all the time. I know that he’s not as relaxed as he looks sometimes. When he has time off, for instance, he will make a list of forty or more chores to do, because he is such a motivated person. He can’t just sit and do nothing for any length of time. This is very contrary to what people perceive him to be, and is something that only I know about him!!!
Adoptive Dad?
Paula has started to write a novel this year and has written down over a hundred chapter headings. Only I know that she would love to get published sometime in her lifetime.
Describe the last romantic thing you did together?
We just celebrated our anniversary and though it sounds pretty routine, we have created a tradition of dinner and a movie together. Since we don’t go to the movies often, this is always a treat for us.
What will you tell your child about their birthmother?
We will let our child know that his or her birthmother loved him/her very much, because only someone who loved a child very much could allow another family to raise that child as their own. We would tell our child that their birthmother thinks of him/her often and still has love in her heart for him/her.
It's Daddy's day - what activity do you want to share with your child?
First Mommy is going to cook a very big breakfast for Daddy and our child. We will hopefully spend the day at a Twins baseball game or playing miniature golf together, or some other fun outdoor sporting activity.
Do you plan on sharing with your child what their birth parents were like?
Our child will know that he/she is adopted and will have questions about his/her birthmother. As these questions arise, we hope to handle them as part of the natural growing up process and as part of a natural curiosity the child has about him/herself and where he/she comes from. We will share information as it is appropriate for our child.
What kind of education are you hoping to provide for your child - Private or Public?
Chad and I are both public school teachers and our child will attend public school.
How did you come to the decision of adoption?
We knew we would likely not be able to have children due to infertility problems and chose adoption rather than fertility treatments as our choice to create a family.
What faith will you raise your child?
We will have an interfaith household including the Judeo-Christian faiths.
How will you help your child accomplish their dreams?
We hope to guide our child, but will allow him/her to make mistakes. We hope to model the behavior we would like our child to learn, but understand that children make mistakes, and it is best when correction is required, to correct behavior gently. We want our child to be exposed to all the things we love from art, to gardening, to sports and movies, but we want their world to be much wider than that too, so that he/she can develop interests of his/her own. We want to support his/her goals by spending time with him/her, doing the things he/she loves to do and by providing whatever financial, emotional, and educational support may be needed for our child to reach any goal he/she would like to achieve.
What kind of a relationship do you hope to build with your birthmom through her pregnancy?
We want to be supportive of the birthmother’s needs during the pregnancy. If after the match conversation, she would like to speak with us periodically and stay in touch by phone or email that would be fine. At this time, Chad and I both feel that we want to respect the privacy of the birthing room. We don’t know if our feelings will change about this once the arrival of the baby gets closer, or once we actually get to know a little about the birthmother, but at this time that is where we currently feel the most comfortable.
How did you meet?
Chad and I met at work, and we did not start seeing each other until a year later.
What was your relationship with your parents like?
My relationship with my parents is excellent. I love them very much and see them at least once a month and speak with them several times a week. I am very close to them.
Chad’s relationship with his mom and dad is also very close. They divorced when he was in college, and this was a very difficult time for them as a family, but now he feels closer to them than he ever has in the past.
What attracted you to each other?
I was attracted to Chad for his extreme intelligence, kindness, his excellence as a teacher and a coach, his extreme competitive nature when it comes to sports, the kindness he displayed toward his students, his sense of fun and joy for life and his positive attitude. I also love his big brown eyes.
I was attracted to Paula because of her beautiful smile, her magnetic personality, her intelligence, and her passion for learning as well as her wit and her humor.
Please describe your personalities:
Adoptive Mom?
My personality is fun, energetic, bubbly, always in a good mood, willing to accept new challenges, and enjoys learning new things.
Adoptive Dad?
Chad’s personality is calm, goal-oriented, competitive in sports, fun-loving, good-natured, and tech-savvy.
What are your hobbies (please share those you enjoy as individuals and those you enjoy as a couple):
Adoptive Mom? I like gardening, scrapbooking, reading, writing, arts and crafts, needlepoint, and watching T.V. and movies
Adoptive Dad? Chad loves sports of all kinds, playing racquetball, golf, volleyball, softball, working with computers, playing computer games, watching science shows, working around the house, and volunteering for everything at school.
Chad and I go to the gym together regularly, love to travel together, go to the mountains or the beach together, take walks together, work on projects around the house together, watch T.V. together and enjoy a movie together. We love getting together with friends for barbeques and Bacci ball, a baseball game, or just for dinner.
When you close your eyes and see yourself holding your precious baby in your arms what are your thoughts regarding the birthmother?
We will always maintain a positive thought and prayer for the birthmother. How could we not when we have received such a precious gift from her? We will think of her whenever we celebrate the great landmarks of our child’s life.
How will a child enrich your life?
Chad and I spend our lives surrounded by children, but never have had the pleasure of having our own. The joy we would feel at being able to raise our own child, celebrate those landmark moments in a child’s life, and share our child with our large and loving extended family from grandparents to cousins and aunts and uncles would be a joy that is almost beyond our understanding at this time. We cannot express the joy we would feel at having the opportunity to raise a child of our own, to share in our daily lives, to have family dinners together, birthdays, and Christmases, to be able to take our child to the ocean and have him or her dip his/her toes into the water for the first time, or to be able to show him/her snow in the mountains. There are a million moments such as these that I imagine when I imagine having a child in our family.
Why did you each choose the career path you decided on?
Chad and I spend our lives surrounded by children, but never have had the pleasure of having our own. The joy we would feel at being able to raise our own child, celebrate those landmark moments in a child’s life, and share our child with our large and loving extended family from grandparents to cousins and aunts and uncles would be a joy that is almost beyond our understanding at this time. We cannot express the joy we would feel at having the opportunity to raise a child of our own, to share in our daily lives, to have family dinners together, birthdays, and Christmases, to be able to take our child to the ocean and have him or her dip his/her toes into the water for the first time, or to be able to show him/her snow in the mountains. There are a million moments such as these that I imagine when I imagine having a child in our family.
What makes a birthmom special?
Birthmoms are special because they make a completely selfless decision for the betterment of a child at great expense and heartache to themselves. It is such a personal sacrifice to decide to maintain a pregnancy, alter your life for close to a year, and then give up a child, even if it is based on the conviction that you’re doing the right thing. It’s still hard. This is heroic to me on the same level that soldiers who go into battle display heroism. It is painful both physically and emotionally, and yet you’re still doing it. That is amazing. I have never had to be that heroic in my own life, and I admire anyone who makes this decision, sticks to it, takes care of themselves physically and emotionally for the duration of a pregnancy, and then allows someone else the privilege of raising the baby. It is staggering and amazing, and my husband and I would feel so blessed to receive such a precious gift.
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