Adoption Terminology

We met in 2013 at a birthday party for a mutual friend. After a brief introduction, I went home and “stalked” Brendon on Facebook. After looking through his profile and thinking he was the cutest guy I had ever seen, I quickly added him as a friend. A week later he sent me a message and asked me on a date. The rest is history! We dated for two and a half years before we got engaged. Brendon surprised me by having our entire family waiting for us at dinner after he proposed and then surprised me again after dinner by having an engagement party with all of our friends waiting to celebrate. Brendon always goes above and beyond to make me feel special and he pulled out all of the stops for our engagement. We were married on February 6, 2016 in Dallas, Texas. Our wedding was the most memorable day of our lives. We celebrated our love for each other surrounded by all of the love of our family and friends. It was truly unforgettable! Since our big day, we have been through some highs and lows, but through it all, we have become stronger. We live each day together as a team and as best friends. We work to encourage one another daily, we respect and value each other’s opinions, and we do and we do a lot of laughing which helps to make our days bright!

Hi! We're Darrin and Rachel. We first met in 2006 and started dating in 2009 right before I (Rachel) moved to college out of state; so we were long-distance for 3 years. We found a mutual love of comics, card games, adventure, and music. After getting married, we also enjoyed playing volleyball together and watching Seahawks games. We both grew up in the greater Seattle area and after our daughter Ellie was born in 2016, we bought a house here, near family and friends.

Some details about us: Darrin is a former truck driver, who now works in a school district. Rachel is an Aerican Sign Language (ASL) interpreter. Our daughter loves making friends and playing with every kid she meets, and her second grade school year is off to a great start. We have a 4 fish and 6 chickens, and our daughter would love a cat someday.

Hello! We are Jotham and Beth and we are thankful that you are taking a moment to view our profile. We truly cannot express in words the love and admiration we already have for you.

A little bit about us! We have been together for 15 years and married for 13. Immediately after our wedding, we moved to Texas from Upstate New York. In our first year of marriage we were blessed with our son, Gideon and a few years later our second son, Ephraim joined the family.  There were some complications from Ephraim's birth which led to future fertility issues.  We have always desired a larger family, and after multiple miscarriages we began to explore adoption.  After a few years of praying and learning about adoption, we felt the Lord was leading us in that direction.  Ever since we have said "yes" to adoption, God has provided in every way possible.

We admire your strength and courage in having to make such a difficult decision.  If chosen as your baby's adoptive family, we promise to love, nurture and provide everything they need and more to have a happy childhood and a successful future.  They will live in a home where he or she knows they are loved and cherished, not only by us, but their first family as well. We know the loving sacrifice you are making for your child, and we promise we will always hold a special place in our hearts for you. Our hope for this profile is that you will come away with an understanding of who we are, our commitment to raising your child in a safe and loving environment, and our desire to honor your child's story for years to come. We pray you feel confidence, peace, and support in your decision, no matter who you choose!

We have been married for over 9 years. It feels like just yesterday but also like we have been together our whole lives! We fell in love with each other because of each others' passion for Jesus and for this generation to know Jesus. Together, we have felt called to serve and make disciples of Jesus specifcially with kids, students, and young adults. We absolutely love spending our days walking along side families and serving the church. Our home is always open and full of families spending time together.  Our whole marriage is built on bringing glory to God together. 

SInce the beginning, It's always been our desire to grow our own family. When we first got married, we decided to grow our family biologically and through adoption. We truly believe that adoption is a beautiful display of God’s love for all of us.  While we have experienced so many wonderful life adventures, we know parenthood will be our favorite one. 

We are high school sweet hearts that met through mutual friends over 16 years ago. Our married life, 7 years ago, began in Salt lake City, where we first became parents when we adopted our cat, Cora. Living in Salt Lake City taught us a lot about working together as a teamby leaning on on another for support. After 5 years together in Salt Lake, we returned to the St. Louis area. This is where we met, and we are elated to be surrounded by friends and family that inspire and motivate us everyday.

Our marriage is strong, built on  a foundation of trust, communication, and teamwork. These are the core values we will use to guide us as we transition into parenthood. We have known about our fertility struggles long before we were married, so adpotion has been on our hearts for a large portion of our relationship.

I became best friends with Jerad’s sister while I was in nursing school. She and I played on a kickball team with nursing school friends, along with Jerad and some of his friends. Jerad and I became friends, started dating, and quickly fell in love. Our relationship has always had a strong foundation based on faith and family. We still consider ourselves lucky to share the same values and opinions on the most important aspects of life: religion, prioritizing family and wanting children.

About a year after we began dating, Jerad cooked a steak dinner at his house for me. After dinner, we were going to watch a movie, but he proposed instead! We sat and talked for an hour before we called anyone which was special to us. We then called our family and close friends and met some friends out that night to celebrate. It was a fun, low key night—the way we like it! We had a large wedding in the church I grew up attending. All our family and friends were there to celebrate with us. It was a beautiful and perfect ceremony. Afterward, we had a reception with dinner and a band. It was one of the most fun nights we have had together. We felt so loved, and we talked to and celebrated with the people we loved and even had time to dance and enjoy the night ourselves

We met at a church Christmas party and got to know each other through game nights and dinner outings with friends, leading to our own friendship and more conversations between the two of us. We realized we had a lot in common and both felt very comfortable being ourselves with each other. We had our first date in 2017 and were married at our church in 2018.

As a couple. we love exploring new places and sharing experiences together. We like to go for walks in nature and especially enjoy exploring different national parks. Our quest is to visit them all! The theme parks at Disney and Universal Studios are also some of our favorite places to unwind and play. We enjoy exploring abroad and closer to home as well.

I would like to introduce you to our family. My name is Julie, and my wonderful husband's name is Will. I am 30 years old, and Will is 31 years old. We have been married for a little over eight years. Will and I met at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. We had both grown up very involved in our churches, so it seems appropriate that we met at the Baptist Collegiate Ministry. We were friends for two years before we started dating. Will's kindness drew me to him. We dated and were engaged for a year and a half before getting married in 2015. Will and I love to travel, and some of our favorite places that we have visited are Spain and Portugal, the Grand Canyon, cruises to the Caribbean, and camping at State Parks, beaches, and other beautiful campgrounds around the Southeastern United States. We can't wait to share our love of travel and the world with a child. We spend a lot of our weekends going to football games, camping in our camper, hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains, and spending time with family either in East Tennessee or Middle Tennessee. I love to capture family adventures and memories with my camera. Since I am a professional photographer, I love to take pictures while we travel and around the local area. I look forward to capturing precious memories of our adopted child as they grow up.

A quick snapshot of us: 

• We live in rural Iowa. 

• Bryan is a pastor of a Reformed Presbyterian Church.

• Olivia is a homeschool mom.

• We value: faith, joy, and love.

• In our home, kids are safe, wanted, guided, and deeply loved.

How we met:

Bryan is from Southern California, and Olivia grew up in Ohio. We met at a Christian student conference in Virginia while Bryan was serving in the Navy.


Why Adoption: 

It's been a long-held desire since we were both kids. 

We want an expectant mother to be able to choose adoption with real hope, knowing her baby will be safe, cared for, and deeply loved in a stable home with open hearts and open arms.

Our faith shapes this deeply. In the Gospel, God welcomes those who were not His children and makes them His beloved children through Jesus. We see adoption as a reflection of that love. 

We met in October 2019 at a trivia night in small town in central Texas. Zoë’s best friend from college happened to invite Ben out to trivia that evening, and Zoë and Ben instantly hit it off. We grew closer in our friendship over the Fall months and in January of 2020 we went on our first date. From that January date to go rock climbing we have basically been inseparable. We have now been married for 3.5 years and love each other more each day.

Right after we started dating, the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the world. We both experienced interruptions to our jobs, social lives, and families. Although the world was forced into isolation, God knew that we were destined to be together and used that time to show us all the different kinds of challenges we can overcome together. We believe that these difficulties early on drew us closer to each other and to the Lord and helped us build a firm foundation for our relationship. We can do anything with the Lord.

Ben is currently working as a software developer and Zoë is a music teacher in several local school districts. We both enjoy playing music together in our free time and spending time with our wonderful church family. We also LOVE to travel all over the place! We are both very active and enjoy hiking, biking, rock climbing, dancing, gardening, disc golf, you name it! Our relationship is full of the joy of the Lord, and we can't wait to share that joy with a child someday.