Adoption Terminology

We both attended Oklahoma State University and started dating after we graduated and moved back to our hometowns, in September 2011. On our second date we had a pizza baking competition, since Matt is the pizza connoisseur! Other favorite dates included going to museums, taking the dogs to dog parks, Thunder games, annual trip to the State Fair, and going to the local drive in movie. 

We were engaged in December 2013 on a ski trip. After discussing with Shae's mom how to do it, Matt decided he just couldn't wait any longer and proposed while our group was playing cards - right after Shae ate a blue sucker and had changed into her comfy clothes for the night. Shae's blue sucker caused her mouth to look like a Smurf, but love is blind! 

We were married on May 3, 2014 in the church that Shae grew up in and where we are now members. We asked our guests to wear orange, black or white and had Pistol Pete as a surprise guest at our reception!

Karsten was born in the crazy year that was 2020! Her birth mom choosing us to be her parents is truly a gift and an honor. Some of our favorite things to do as a family include going to OSU football games, visiting the zoo, and playing outside! 

Thank you for taking time to look through our family's profile. We know the magnitude of the decisions you're making right now, and although we do not know your name, we are praying that you are safe and healthy, and that you feel loved, supported and at peace.

With love,
Matt and Shae

Hello! Our family lives in a suburb outside Washington, DC and we have two biological daughters - we are very excited to add to our family through adoption! We have been happily married for nine years and are best friends who enjoy traveling together to places both near and far. We are a family who doesn't like to sit still and is always on the move! We are energized by adventure, powered by ice cream, and firmly committed to following Christ and raising our children to love Him and love others. Come explore our profile to learn more of who we are! 

We met in 2008 when Facebook had apps that became the precursors to today’s dating apps. After chatting online for a few weeks, we decided to meet for dinner after church. I (Mindy) spent the whole service praying Clay wouldn’t show up because I was so nervous. But he did show up, and we had a great evening. We talked for hours over queso and tacos. I was disarmed by his lack of pretense, his willingness to show me who he really is and not cover up rough patches in his life. We hit it off that night and began dating exclusively. A few months later, Clay wanted to be baptized at our church, and he asked me to do it. That afternoon was the first time our parents met each other, and it is a wonderful memory. After dating for about a year and a half, Clay proposed and we were married just three months later.

When we met, I had a degree in counseling and was working for Presbyterian Children’s Homes and Services. I felt called to teaching though, and shortly after we began dating, I accepted a position to teach 5th grade at a private Christian school. Sixteen years and so many good memories later, and I am still here and now our daughter attends as well. Clay was working for an accounting firm when we met. He has continued to work in office administration and finance, while also getting his master’s of education.

Our life is focused on our faith in Jesus and love for one another. We are surrounded by family and friends who love and support us and have fun with us. We are active in our church and school, and both of these communities are extensions of our family. We still eat lots of tacos and queso, and we are thankful that we both stepped out in faith through what seemed to be just a chance meeting online.

We met on an online dating site. I noticed right away that Peter was special. He asked good questions and took a genuine interest in getting to know who I was. I was intrigued by him. After a couple of weeks of exchanging long messages, he asked me out to dinner. Our first date was at a restaurant called Smokey Bones. We felt at ease with one another right away and more dates followed, including bowling, a trip to the zoo, going to an indoor amusement park, and trying new restaurants. We enjoyed our second date at a local Thai restaurant where our connection deepened. Later, Peter proposed by setting up a private dinner with food from this same restaurant. He also had a book made that included all of our email messages from when we were getting to know each other online. Since we decided on a small wedding, we had our ceremony at a local park pavilion on the most beautiful fall day. It was a perfectly simple, sunny, and wonderful day. We chose a small wedding with hopes of going on a big adventure for our honeymoon. We went to Ireland, a place I had always wanted to go. Peter had been there before on a high school trip, and had wanted to come back with his wife someday. I guess both of our dreams came true :)

We are Cory and Kelsi, with three children, Abe, Hazel, and Riley. We love spending time together as a family doing activities like bike rides, movie and pizza nights, individual and family date nights. We live in a small rural town that is currently growing quickly. Kelsi is a stay-at-home mom, that works part time for the local libraries providing early childhood activities. She has her degree in Early Childhood Education. Cory is a software engineer and gets to work from home two days a week. Cory has his degree in Computer Science. Our children range in ages from 5-10.  With the youngest in morning preschool and the oldest in Junior High.  Adoption has always been part of our plan. We were blessed with our three children, but are ready to add to our family through adoption.

Married over 13 years with God at our center, we enjoy each other's company by sharing many common interests and values. Interests include: musky fishing, hiking local, state and national parks, and game and movie nights. All activities that we hope to share with a child one day.

We are a loving, stable, and joyful family of 3, who whose prayer has been to be able to share these gifts with more children. Genuine, hopeful, friendly, and fun are a few words to describe us.  We're that family that likes to play guitar (we practiced during the pandemic) and sing praise songs around a bonfire, carry a picnic blanket and kickball in our trunk just in case, read aloud to eachother on car long and short car rides, and have Christmas lights up in our patio all year round because they're pretty.  I'd like to say we are serious when it comes to our faith, morals and work ethic, but live these out in joy and flexibility.  For example, Matthew bikes to work listening to Catholic podcasts, and I have a "Cleaning with God" playlist to help me stay motivated.  We love our God, Church, family time, and friends. 

Hello!  We're Sam and Robyn, and we're excited to give you a peek into the happy craziness that is our family.  We were married in 2016 and God has taken us through a lot of ups and downs, and a lot of adventures so far, and we're excited to see what lies ahead.

We love bright colors, interesting foods, books (more than we have shelves for), and being with friends and family.  We are passionate about theatre, histroy, and theology, and board games.  We're both extroverts and have hobbies that involve lots of people!  We're excited to open our hearts to you and we invite you to learn what our family is all about!

We were both home schooled and met in 2007 at a Speech and Debate Tournament.  We became good friends and were both involved in choir and drama, so we would see each other frequently.

After Robyn graduated high school, she spent some time doing volunteer work in Israel alongside people from all over the world.  During that time, because of the distance, we started writing letters.  The hand-written letter continued for years to be our favorite method of communication, in addition to facebook, email, and when things got serious, phone calls.  We talked about life, our faith and spiritual growth, our dreams for the future.  We talked about our views on family building and parenting, including our hope to adopt a child someday, as many people we knew had adopted (including Sam's parents).

Although we were both raised in faithful Christian families, our churches were very different from each other, which was a major point of contention, particularly with Robyn's dad.  It took many hears to work through things, but God changes hearts.  So, in July of 2016 we were officially engaged, and were married that October.

Our son Ambrose was born 10 months later, the first grandkid to his dad's parents, the 13th grandkid to his mom's.  Then 18 months after Ambrose, Dulicinea came along.  Do to complications with the placenta, Dulcinea had to be delivered 5 weeks early by C-section, followed by a hysterechtomy.

Dulcinea was so tiny and beautiful and strong, and we are so thankful that God preserved her life.  But it was a hard blow to not be able to have any more biological kids.  Adoption has always been on our hearts, but we had thought it would come later in our lives.  It appears that God's plan is for us to pursue this path now.

Ambrose and Dulcinea are very excited about the idea of growing our family through adoption.  They pray for the child, and ask others to pray.  We have a huge extended family and a great community  of church friends, drama friends, reenacting friends, and friends we knew from home school activities.  They are all excited to welcome another little friend into their lives.

Our names are Crissy and Thomas. Crissy is a pediatric nurse and Thomas is a former police officer and current first responder for 9-1-1. The thing we want most in this world is to have a family. We have been married for nine years, and we did fertility treatments for the first six of them. We were originally introduced in 2007 and over the next few years were introduced by a few more. We finally decided to give it a shot. We got married in November 2013, Over the next several years of medical intervention, treatments and one lost pregnancy it was discovered that Crissy had unexplained infertility. We still have the dream to start a family. We know that families are made in many different ways and we are hopeful that our family is still out there. We truly feel as though God has led us to adoption, and we hope and pray that this will finally be our opportunity to create our family.

We are Matt and Cat and we live on a small farm in Strasburg, Colorado. We met during high school, and it didn’t take long for us to fall in love. We have been happily married for 10 years but have been together for 20. Through Matt’s military and civilian career, we moved all over and eventually landed in Colorado. It wasn’t your typical journey, and we definitely didn’t follow the traditional path. Through trials and tribulations, we both realized we needed to go back to school, later in our lives, to obtain our college degrees and we both enjoy successful careers in Systems Engineering and Insurance Management. We wanted to accomplish certain milestones in life before bringing a child into the world. When we realized that naturally conceiving was not an option there was the initial sadness; however, it quickly turned to joy and excitement as we began the adoption process. Matt was adopted at a very young age, and we understood how beneficial adoption can be for the birth mother, child, and adoptive parents. Now a little bit about the home the child will grow up in. The amount of love in this home is indescribable by words. The child will be happy and will know that they are loved and wanted. It is the simple things in life that are important to us, a good home, good health, stable marriage, and beyond all happiness. If the birth parent chooses, we would like our child to know about their birth parents, the incredible amount of love they had for the child, and the sacrifice they made to ensure the child was provided for in life. We will teach our child about love, respect, hard work, and most of all how to have fun. They will spend their time experiencing life rather than watching it on television. Education is important to us, and our child will receive a good elementary and secondary education. College is a personal decision, and we will support our child in whatever decision they make. Most important to us is that the child be provided with the opportunities they need to pursue the path they choose in life. We look forward to watching our child grow and mature; support them as they stumble in life; and, of course, will celebrate with them as they experience the many successes in their life.