Technically, the first time we met was at the housewarming party John and our mutual friend Ryan threw when they moved into a new apartment. But since John doesn’t remember meeting Rebecca that night, we think the one that counts is the evening we were actually introduced. At the time, Rebecca and her roommate were living in a place that didn’t have a decent kitchen and when she wanted to bake, Ryan suggested she come to his and John’s apartment and use their oven. While she was there, Ryan texted John, “Come home. There are women in our kitchen baking bread.” John wrote back, “What?” to which Ryan replied, “I don’t know how I can be any more clear.”

Since he didn’t plan to explain any further, John came home from work to find out what was going on and we were introduced for the first time. From then on, we had regular dinner parties with our roommates; John would make dinner and Rebecca would make dessert, and our roommates would be in charge of cleaning up. Our friendship began in the kitchen as we discussed recipes and shared stories about our week. When Rebecca moved out of the city, we made sure to stay in touch and the more time we spent together, the more we realized how much we treasured that time and the friendship turned into the happy marriage we have today.

One important aspect of our lifestyle is our close relationship with our family and the friends who are our chosen family. To us and to these chosen family members, biological connection is not what defines our bonds- rather, love is what defines us and makes us a real family in the most important sense.

The most notable example of this is the group that Rebecca refers to as the “third branch” of her family tree. All her life, Rebecca has known these friends as her aunts and uncles, and their children as her cousins. When she and John married, they embraced him wholeheartedly. The family gathers every summer to spend time together and we’re present for all of each other’s major life events, celebrating weddings and births together and supporting each other at funerals, too.

Relationships like these have a major influence on the way we form our friendships, and we happily fill the role of aunt and uncle to our goddaughters and our friends’ children as well as our biological niece. Any child in our family will grow up surrounded by the care and love of not only their adoptive family’s biological relatives, but their adoptive family’s informally-adopted family- all those friends who are aunts, uncles, and cousins to us, and our friends who will be aunts, uncles, and cousins to the newest member of the family. 

We are Episcopalian and are active members of our church. As Episcopalians, our faith teaches us that all people are loved and that one of the most important things we can do is treat others with the same love and dignity that we all deserve. Our tradition values the leadership of women, embraces the LGBTQ+ community, and is welcoming of diverse theological viewpoints. We also value care for the natural world and for our neighbors both near and far, which has led our congregation to be active in addressing economic and racial inequality in our city.

In our congregation, John serves on the hospitality ministry and is involved in facilitating a “question of the week” activity designed to spark meaningful conversations and help members of the congregation get to know one another better. Rebecca teaches Sunday School to high schoolers and loves getting to know the kids and their families. She has even taken one of her classes on a pilgrimage to Ireland! Rebecca is also part of an intentional Episcopal community whose members are committed to a life of prayer and whose focus is “hospitality, generosity, compassion, and love”. 

We are very close with both sides of our family and enjoy getting together as often as geography allows. We live near Rebecca's parents as well as John's mom (John's dad sadly passed away a few years ago) and we see all of them a few times a month. We are very lucky that our parents became good friends when we started dating and introduced them to each other, so we often get together as a group to go out to dinner, attempt to solve an escape room, or play board games. We even take weekend trips to explore nearby cities like Philadelphia or Richmond, and enjoy hosting Easter at our house with both sides of the family present to celebrate together.

While other members of our extended families live farther away, we remain close with them as well. We enjoy regular Facetime calls with Rebecca's brother, Thomas, and our niece, Colette, and have active group texts with our cousins, aunts, and uncles. We see John's cousins, aunt, and uncle in person for major holidays, and spend a week each summer at the beach and a week each winter in Buffalo with Rebecca's extended family. Everyone has been very supportive and excited about welcoming a new family member! Our moms regularly joke about moving into our guest room to spend more time enjoying being Grandmas.

One of the things we like best about our town here in Maryland is that it was built to be an inclusive community. Our single-family home is within a mile of other single-family homes, town homes, and apartments, and each neighborhood is built around a community center because the developers wanted to bring together families from all racial, religious, and economic backgrounds. Children in our town grow up with neighbors and friends who reflect this diversity and welcoming atmosphere, and families get to know each other in shared neighborhood spaces. 

Inside, our home reflects our personalities and interests. One room is Rebecca's home library and the basement is John's game room, where he hosts regular board game nights for friends. We share a craft room, too- Rebecca's yarn, knitting supplies, and spinning wheels take up half the room, while the other half holds John's 3D printer and paints. But as fun as these rooms are, the family room is really the heart of our home. It's where we sit together in the evening to talk over our day or relax with visiting friends and family. At Christmas, our tree stands in the corner and we light a warm fire in the fireplace while we open presents. When we welcome a child into our family, we look forward to seeing these spaces transformed with picture books in the library, crayons and coloring books in the craft room, and toys in the basement and family room.  

Hello! We’re Rebecca and John and we’re pleased to “meet” you. We’ve been happily married since 2021 and, although we have enjoyed a few quiet years with just our cats for company, we’re ready to break the quiet by welcoming a baby into our hearts and our family. We know that just because you’re reading this doesn’t mean we’ll ever meet, so we want to start by letting you know that, whether you decide on adoption (with us or another family) or whether you choose to parent, we’re cheering for you! We know you’re making this decision with the kind of love only parents can have for their children, and for whatever the trust of strangers is worth, you have ours that your baby will lead a wonderful life, filled with love.

Should we become your child’s adoptive parents, we’ll make sure that you receive letters and pictures as this beautiful child grows and that your child knows your name, sees your picture, and knows you as the first parents to love him or her. We’re open to working out other types of contact as we get to know you and are able to talk to you about your needs and wants; as your child grows older, his or her preferences will become an important part of that conversation as well.

You’d probably like to know at least some basics about us, right? It’s hard to summarize our lives in a relatively short time but we’ll do our best. Our household consists of Rebecca, John, and our cats, but our door is always open to family and friends, who are over at least weekly to spend time with us, and our house is a happy, cheerful place with a lot of love.

Our parents live nearby and are good friends with each other, so we see them regularly, too. Our moms have been joking (at least, we think they’re joking…) about moving in to our basement when we add a baby to the family, so that they can enjoy being grandmas every day! We’re close with Rebecca’s brother and his daughter, who call us in the evenings to hang out virtually. Facetime visits with a 4-year-old are hilarious- sometimes our niece sets the phone down so that we end up looking at the ceiling and listening to her play with her toys!

That close relationship with our families includes our extended family, some of whom are “family but not relatives”, as we like to say. This is probably one of our biggest strengths as prospective adoptive parents; we both come from families who consider love and commitment to be more important than biology, and who honor these relationships by giving them as much care as our relationships with our biological relatives receive. A child adopted into our family will not be less a part of it than the children born into the family and we know this because of these life-long, loving relationships with non-related family.

We see all of the extended family- relatives and otherwise- for visits throughout the year. We spend the 4^th of July with John’s family, eating crab, as is traditional here in Maryland, and watching fireworks over the Chesapeake Bay. Later in the summer, we travel to the beach and spend a week swimming, playing in the sand, and catching up with family from out of the area. We also spend one weekend with the non-relative family in the mountains in Pennsylvania, where we swim, have campfires, and, most importantly, enjoy each other’s company.

On more ordinary days at home, we always make time to be together in the evenings for a family dinner. On weekends, we sometimes have chores to take care of, or house projects we want to complete, but we also like to go to the movies, play board games, and hike in the woods near our house. Sometimes we go to the zoos or aquarium in DC or Baltimore, or visit National Parks or museums. Whatever we’re doing, we enjoy spending that time together.

We wish you the best of luck and we know that, whatever life holds for you and your child, it’s going to be a beautiful gift!

John & Rebecca