What will you tell the child about his/her adoption?

Friends of ours adopted their youngest in an open adoption. He told me a story once about the first time his daughter’s birth mother came to visit their home.

Taking her birth mother by the hand, she led her from room to room. When she got to her bedroom, she pointed at a picture the family keeps on a shelf. In the picture, her birth mother is pregnant.

“This is you,” she said. “You carried me in your tummy until mommy came to take me home.”

That’s what we want our adoption to be. We will tell our child bedtime stories about their adoption, and about the brave, loving choice you made. We will tell them how special they are, how there’s nothing we wanted more in the world than for them to be a part of our family.

In our family, adoption will not be a secret. It will be a celebration.

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Our home &
Neighborhood

When we think of our home, we think of peace. We think of calm mornings with music playing, coffee brewing, and dogs cuddling on the couch. We think of warm sunlight streaming through the windows and a light breeze coming in from the field behind the yard.

Our home is a place of safety and happiness — often full of laughter from friends and family. We have a very open floor plan, with the kitchen, dining room and living room all connected, which means we are always together. Whether we are playing games, watching our favorite teams, or hosting a large dinner with friends, our goal is for our home to feel like a place of rest and rejuvenation for all who enter.

The nursery (one of three bedrooms) will be right across the hall from our bedroom. We are already dreaming of the space we’ll create for a child to grow in, as well as the playroom we are planning for the basement (with all of the toys, and a space for art and creativity).

We live in a wonderful, quiet neighborhood about 25 minutes from the downtown area of a large Midwestern city in Missouri. Our house backs up to open fields for miles and miles. Our neighborhood is full of big, beautiful trees, a small wooded area with a walking path, and a pool.

Quite honestly, we can’t imagine a better home and neighborhood for our lives. The only thing missing is the new life of a child.

Our extended families

Kyle’s family lives nearby and is an incredibly important part of our lives. His brother (and his fiance), his sister and brother-in-law, and his parents are all within 20 minutes. His parents’ home — a log cabin with a pool on two beautiful acres — is kind of like the family retreat.

We see each other all the time — at least once a week. This family plays games, watches sports, grills out, plays in the pool and travels together. We talk about what matters most to us, and we also laugh so hard our stomachs hurt. We also tend to get a little bit competitive. The “Cabin Games,” hosted at Kyle’s parents’ cabin, have become a legendary tradition.

Maddie’s family is further away, but no less important. She is one of seven siblings, which makes family get-togethers pretty fun. Originally from Tennessee, the siblings are spread out across the country now. But, her childhood home is still the gathering place for holidays.

We love getting back together with the whole, big group — which now includes many amazing nieces and nephews. We are so excited for our child to grow up playing with their cousins!

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What led you to choose adoption to build you family?

Adoption, in a way, was always going to be a part of our family. Kyle’s entire career has been about adoption — first for a nonprofit that served medically fragile children in other countries’ orphanage systems, and now with a media company that provides services for adoption agencies. He likes to say that he’s thought about adoption every day for the last seven years.

So, when it became clear that starting a family biologically was not working for us, adoption made the most sense in the world. “Of course,” we thought, “it was always going to be adoption for us.”

If you are at all worried that we see adoption as a sort of “plan B” or secondary option: we promise that is not the case.

We could not be more excited about adoption, because we know that family is not about blood. Family is about love.

What will you tell the child about his/her adoption?

Friends of ours adopted their youngest in an open adoption. He told me a story once about the first time his daughter’s birth mother came to visit their home.

Taking her birth mother by the hand, she led her from room to room. When she got to her bedroom, she pointed at a picture the family keeps on a shelf. In the picture, her birth mother is pregnant.

“This is you,” she said. “You carried me in your tummy until mommy came to take me home.”

That’s what we want our adoption to be. We will tell our child bedtime stories about their adoption, and about the brave, loving choice you made. We will tell them how special they are, how there’s nothing we wanted more in the world than for them to be a part of our family.

In our family, adoption will not be a secret. It will be a celebration.

Get in touch with us →

Describe Your Lifestyle

You can usually find us outside. Whether we are working on the yard, tending to our garden, walking through our neighborhood, hiking on a trail or fishing in a stream. We like to get out and enjoy the world.

We also live a very healthy lifestyle. We grow as much of our own produce as we can, especially during the warmer months of the year. We eat fresh, with lots of veggies. We enjoy cooking together, especially when we can fire up the grill on cool summer evenings.

Along with being active and healthy, a lot of our lifestyle is based around the people we go through life with. We see family every week, and you can usually find us hosting friends several nights a week. We have great people around us, and we love to be together.

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How will you address cultural diversity?

We have thought long and hard about being two white parents of a child who is not white. Of course, we don’t know if this will be the case. But if we are a transracial family, we are ready for the challenges that will come our way, prepared to put in the work to do what is best for our child, and hopeful for the beauty that comes from such a special family situation.

Our plan is to:

  • Continually educate ourselves, learning from people whose experiences are different than our own
  • Place ourselves in diverse situations where whiteness is not always the norm
  • Ensure our child has role models in their lives who look like them
  • Practice activities and teach viewpoints that show the beauty of every race
  • Do everything we can for our child to feel proud of their heritage and beautiful in their body

What takes priority in your life?

Family takes priority over everything in our life. Nothing matters more than these relationships. Life, we believe, is all about being present in the moment to the people around you.

We’ll never put money ahead of relationships. We’ll never put career accomplishments ahead of family time. We’ll never put popularity or success ahead of genuine and meaningful connections.

Instead, we try to live in a way that focuses on what really matters — the quiet moments with each other, lasting connection with family, a strong community of friends, the peace and beauty of nature.

“Contentment” is a word we talk about often, and it’s a way of being that we hope to pass on to our child. Life can be wonderful if you take a moment to pay attention to all that good that is right in front of you.

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M + K