We met through an online dating app. At first we were exchanging messages about our love for cats and Harry Potter. When we first met in person, Shauna was over thirty minutes late! She had to rush home from work to change and got caught in traffic driving to the restaurant. The date ended up going well, though. Instant connection. We spoke for hours about our favorite local places to visit and eat and how similar but very different our families were. A simple invite to meet up on a weeknight turned into a multi-hour date.

Shauna thought Ryan was funny. Ryan thought Shauna was easy to talk to. On the very first night we met, we both expressed our desire to have children. he first date was such a spectacular night filled with so much laughter, that we immediately made plans to see one another again. One date turned into two and now we're here married loving our life together and still laughing.

We have a diverse cultural heritage. Ryan comes from an Irish-American family and Shauna is from a Filipino-American family. Although the Irish and Filipino cultures are vastly different, family is always at the center for both.

We love to celebrate St. Patrick's Day every year. We're lucky that our city is very big on celebrating. We like to start off the day with a big meal at a local Irish pub and we toast to our family members who are no longer with us. The whole family gets together to go to a neighborhood parade and celebrate our Irish heritage.

For the Filipino side, every gathering is a feast. Everyone helps to bring a dish and there is always more than enough food. Filipino cuisine consists primarily seafood and pork accompanied by exotic vegetables- and lots of rice. It's a mix of Spanish and Asian influences. On very special occasions, we roast a pig, a lechon, it is the very best!

We enjoy spending our down time with each other and our two cats, Loki and Maizie. Loki is a typical cat, he likes to hang out in the same places as us but Maizie is our cuddle bug - she loves humans and attention. She's always purring and everyone instantly loves her when they visit (even if they thought they weren't cat people!). When relaxing, we love to cook, try new restaurants, and watch our favorite tv shows together. Our perfect Friday night is usually a good meal and tv show for us to enjoy! We like shows with suspense, action, and comedy such as Jack Ryan, The Sopranos, and The Office. Leisure time is important to us as it helps us recharge and reconnect with each other. We use our relaxation time to chat about random topics and to plan fun future activities like vacations. When we go on vacation we always build in time to relax and take in somewhere new at a slower pace. We love experiencing different cultures, Peru being our favorite trip yet! We also love to go to every type of sporting event. We go to baseball games, soccer games, football and hockey games. We're fortunate enough to live within 30 minutes of most major sporting venues. For football games, we make a weekend of it by visiting Ryan's brother's town and enjoying family time. We just love to have fun and enjoy life at every possible moment.

Our extended families are large and loving! We have a very diverse mixture of ages, races, and backgrounds in our family and we love spending time with each other. When we get together there's always a big meal (both sides of our family love to cook) and usually a card game or board games to follow.

Our families are incredibly excited about the opportunity to support us as parents! We have the good fortune to live near our families so birthdays, holidays, and random weekend days always feel like a special occasion.

Ryan has two siblings, his sister is fifteen minutes away and his brother is a three hour drive away. Ryan's parents are also a fifteen-minute drive away. He has a large extended family that is mostly within an hour from our house. Shauna comes from a blended family made of two full-blooded brothers, a half-brother, and two step-brothers. She has one brother who lives across the country but is planning on moving back to the area by the end of 2023. Another one lives down the street and both step-brothers are within an hour drive. Shauna's dad, stepmom, and half-brother are a three-hour drive away and her mom and stepdad live within a thirty-minute drive.

We're also blessed to have a strong support system. Our parents are retired or near retirement age and are willing to help with anything that life throws our way. All of our family are very excited about us potentially becoming parents.

We live in a quiet neighborhood in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri. We're within walking distance of an elementary school and high school and surrounded by trees and parks. It's a very nice community full of different ages and backgrounds. Our community has a lot of activities and events that are kid friendly and the schools are some of the best in the state.

Our home is a ranch with three bedrooms and plenty of space. We spend a lot of downtime in our "garden room" which is where we keep our books. We also enjoy watching TV in our living room area and working out in our basement. The kitchen is probably our favorite room as we do a lot of cooking!

We have beautiful trees and landscaping so when the weather is nice we enjoy spending time outside on our front porch bench or out on our back yard deck. We have a really nice space for grilling and during the summer we frequently have family and friends over.

We married in 2018 and we immediately tried to start creating our family. Unfortunately, we experienced four miscarriages. Each pregnancy we were so full of hope and joy and each loss was so devastating. After the last miscarriage, we visited a specialist and found that it would be nearly impossible to have a biological child. After many tears and tough conversations, we asked ourselves if we still wanted to have children the answer was yes. We took the time to process our grief and resolved that the best thing for our family would be to adopt a child. Adoption is perfect for us because starting a family is our highest priority and we will never stop being grateful if we are blessed with an opportunity to adopt a child.

We are soulmates and we have an incredible loving relationship based on mutual trust and respect. We love living our lives together, always making sure to make the most of this life. We want to model our love for a child and be positive role models so that they also feel loved. Our hope for raising a child is that we provide the child with the best possible environment to thrive in. We want our child to feel loved, valued, and respected and to take those same values out into the world to make a positive impact. We also want to see the world through a child's eyes. As much as we will teach a child, we know we will be learning from them just as much.

As we've learned more about adoption, we have an incredible appreciation for the courage it takes for you to consider giving an adoption opportunity to your child. We will never be able to fully understand your situation but our appreciation for you will never waver. Our commitment to giving a child the best possible home environment we can provide will also never waver. We want you to know that your child will always be our number one priority and their well-being and happiness will always be our priority. We want to share updates about the child's life with you through pictures and letters. We'd also be open to sharing more updates over email or visiting you so you can see what a fantastic human your child has grown into.

Adoption is a beautiful thing and we intend to be open and honest with our child about it. We want to constantly remind them that they are loved by more than just their adopted family, that their birth family also loves them. We know that adoption and raising a child is a huge responsibility and we have done everything in our power to prepare for this life-changing event.

We know that raising a child will be the greatest challenge we undertake but we are ready to begin the journey. We have spent years planning for a family and we are emotionally, financially, and physically ready for this opportunity.

After reading more about us we hope that you have a better sense of who we are and what qualities we'd bring to a child's life as parents. We are incredibly grateful for you taking the time to read this and consider us to be parents. We are in awe of your courage and we want you to know that we do not take this responsibility lightly.

Thank you for choosing adoption and thank you for considering us to be parents to your perfect child.

Warmest Regards,

Ryan & Shauna