The best word to describe our family would be joyful! We have a deep gratitude and love for our children and are firmly committed to giving them as beautiful and pure of a childhood and family life as possible. We firmly believe in our children having "device free" childhoods (we watch TV, but our kiddos will not have cell phones/iPads or social media until they are older) so they can play outside, use their imaginations, and learn to interact with and love the world around them. Because of Elizabeth's elementary teaching background, music-making and learning new things in general (we just recently grew caterpillars into butterflies!) are a huge focus in our family. 

We really value quality family time, and every night we sit down and eat dinner together as a family and talk about our day. From there, Chris spends the rest of the evening before kid bedtime as "Daddy time" playing make-believe, building pillow forts in the basement, having water fights/riding bikes outside, and almost always having a "dance party" to round out the evening. The last thing we do before bedtime is family prayers where we take turns saying what we are most grateful for, from the day. Because we've lost 9 babies, we appreciate and delight in our children that are here with us so much, and if you choose us to be your child's parents, we can promise you that we will love your baby every bit as much!

We are Roman Catholic Christians, and our faith is incredibly important to us. Elizabeth was raised Protestant (her family is still Protestant) and Chris' mother's side of the family is Greek Orthodox, so we have all of the major denominations of Christianity covered in our family! 

We both chose our faith as adults, and our Catholic faith is absolutely a daily part of our lives. We both take set aside time each day to read scripture and pray and attend church services weekly as a family. We also are both members of a men's and women's small group, where we share about the daily ups and downs of life and support and pray for each other. As a family, we pray together before all meals in our house, as well as say night prayers together before bedtime.

We have been through a lot of suffering in losing so many children, but our faith has absolutely been our anchor through it all, and we know that while this life can sometimes be a "valley of tears," we have the great hope in the "end of the story" being eternal life with Our Lord, and all those whom we love, but no longer see.

Being parents is the greatest joy of our lives! We have gone through so much suffering trying to start a family, and so because of this we are extremely grateful for each of the children we currently have here with us. They have been so worth "fighting" for, and we could go through all of our suffering again in a heartbeat, if it meant having them in our lives. If you choose us to be your child's parents, we can promise you that we will love and cherish them every bit as much as our biological children, as we have fought for your child in a different, but beautiful way through adoption.

To us, the greatest joy of parenting has been to watch our current two boys grow into the little people that God created them to be. Each one has individual talents and interests and it's a great delight to watch and help them foster and grow these every day. We also love to watch them grow in their character and kindness towards others. We hope to raise children who will care deeply about those around them, and even though they are very young (and are still very much learning) we are so blessed to already see our kiddos beginning to think of others before themselves, something so needed in our world today!

We are blessed that both sides of our family get along amazingly well, and we share all major family holidays together. It's incredible to have both sets of grandparents close by, and at least once a month, we have them all over for a big family dinner. It's always a blast, and we always close out each grandparent dinner with an epic family dance party (led by Chris) in our basement. Both sets of grandparents get along so well that for spring break this year, we all rented a large log cabin together in Hocking Hills, OH and spent the week hiking and playing outside together. It was a fantastic memory for our boys!

Chris is an only child, but Elizabeth has two brothers who are very much the "fun uncles" to our boys. One lives close by, and one lives in Nova Scotia, Canada. Last summer, we traveled to Prince Edward Island, Canada to visit our family, and had a blast playing with cousins in the ocean, going on lobster catching boat rides, and exploring the outdoors. Elizabeth's first cousin lives locally and has three children around our boy's ages, so we also really enjoy playing with them.

Our family is incredibly supportive of our hope to adopt a final member of our family. They have seen the suffering we have gone through in losing so many children and know how much joy it would give us to finally complete our family through adoption.

We live in a very quaint town in Michigan that is super supportive of young families! Our town has multiple parks, a splashpad, tasty ice cream shops, and a wonderful library that we go to often with our kiddos for Storytime and other fun activities like children's magicians or free popsicle day :) Other favorite local activities are going to the Zoo/Petting Zoo, Children's Museum, cider mill in the fall and neighborhood pool to play with school and church friends. Our neighborhood has an annual 4th of July bike parade for kiddos, and "trick or treating" is always a fun event in the neighborhood. We've also won a city contest the last two years at Christmas time that involved Santa Claus riding through our neighborhood on a fire truck and handing out toys to all the children. 

Our house is a classic colonial style with 4 bedrooms (one for each child). We have a large downstairs playroom for our boys filled with a trampoline, kid roller coaster, climbing cube/slide, a huge blanket fort, play kitchen, costume trunk, kid musical instruments, and more cars and trains than you've ever seen :) Our favorite room is our family room, because we spend the most family time there and have a very cozy wood burning fireplace that we love to spend time by in the winter. We also have a "kid paradise" backyard, complete with a large treehouse/sandbox that Chris built from scratch.

Dear Birth Parent(s), 

Six months after we were married about 10 years ago, we found out that we were pregnant with our first child, Mary Rose. Elizabeth was extremely sick throughout the pregnancy, and after about 5.5 months, we found out that our daughter had an extremely rare and serious genetic disorder called 3P Minus syndrome, that would cause her to die shortly after birth, or as a young child. At 38 weeks, we found out that her heart stopped in utero, and Elizabeth delivered her as a stillborn. We went on to have our two living children (two little boys, ages 5 and 7) but have had 8 heartbreaking losses since (including another later term unrelated genetic loss and a baby girl who looked completely healthy, but whose heart stopped for unknown causes at 14 weeks) We recently found out that Elizabeth has an auto-immune condition that has caused her body to attack healthy pregnancies, which has affected at least six of our losses.

We have always felt that our family was still missing a final member, which is why we have kept fighting for one last child to add to our family. Our heartache in losing so many children has led us to realize that that God is asking us to add the final member of our family through adoption, and that this has been His plan for us all along. If you choose us to be your child's parents, we will tell everyone we know how He used you to show us His great faithfulness, at the end of our story. We also promise you that we will love and cherish your child every bit as much as our biological children, as we have fought for them in a different, but beautiful way, through adoption.

When we tell your child about their adoption, we will absolutely tell them what a profoundly beautiful gift that you have chosen to give us, in completing our family. It is so easy to end a pregnancy, and your bravery and self-sacrifice in giving your child the gift of life, is something that we would be incredibly moved by and grateful for. We don't know what it's like place a child for adoption, but we do know what it is to lose a child, and we can't tell you how much it means to us that you would be so humble as to considering doing this for your child, and for us. Whenever we speak of you, we will absolutely tell your child how much your "yes" has meant to us (and to them!) and that you loved them so much that you knew we were the best family for them. You can absolutely count on your child being so proud and grateful for the gift you will have given us all, and we will all spend the rest of our lives thanking God for you.

If you choose us to be your child's parents, we can promise you that your child will grow up being loved and cherished beyond measure by us, and our extended family. Our family is full of so much joy and love of life, and while no family is perfect, we can promise you that we will try our very best to give your child the absolute best and most loving family life possible. We will send you yearly pictures and letters as your child is growing up so that you can watch them grow into the beautiful soul that they were created to be, and we will always keep you in our prayers.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for considering adoption and for considering us for the unspeakable joy of adding your precious baby to our family. We hope to meet you soon, but wherever your journey takes you, please know of our prayers for you through this whole process! 

With Love and Respect, 

Chris & Elizabeth