American Adoptions -- America's Adoption Agency
 We are Chris and Carolyn, and we are an energetic, loving and fun couple from Connecticut who are ready to grow our family. We understand that you are trying to select a family for your baby to thrive in and be loved in, and we are excited that you are thinking about us to do just that. |
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We have been incredibly fortunate that adoption has already touched our hearts and helped shaped our family. Our 3 children were all adopted and we are very excited to grow our family again. We've always dreamed of having a large family. We also have a deep appreciation for the gift of sibling relationships, with Carolyn having been the oldest of four and with both of us having very close relationships with our siblings. And we feel so fortunate that we have the love, energy and resources to share with one more child. When we started on this path of adoption over 5 years ago, we couldn't even begin to know how our lives would change and how quickly we would bond together as a family. We met our children when they were each 48 hours old in the hospital. We share information with them about their adoption stories on an age-appropriate basis and are looking forward to when they are older and can better understand their story. We want them to always know they were adopted so they never have that moment where they are surprised and so they have an awareness and appreciation of it without it completely defining them. We believe it's important that they understand how much their birthparents love them and that when they chose us to be their parents, it was out of tremendous love for them.
We feel very fortunate that we've been able to travel extensively, and we hope to share that passion for travel and experiencing other cultures with our children. While we've been lucky enough to hike on a glacier in Alaska and on a volcano in Hawaii, our favorite vacation spot has become our beach house, located a few hours from our home. Our family loves sharing our time at the beach with extended family and close friends, and we take pride in setting new records for how many people we can squeeze in for dinner or an overnight stay. At the beach we have developed all kinds of traditions and found great ways to bond together as a family. Our children love building sand castles (and then trampling them down) as well as the amusement rides and ice cream treats at night. Because we are often there with other families we are able to enjoy some adult company and our children are able to just be kids with their close friends. Being at the beach refreshes all of us and is great bonding time for our family.
It's important to us to honor family traditions that have long been in our families as well as to create new traditions. Among the traditions we have already carried over into our home is the Red Plate tradition. Whenever someone has a birthday or something to celebrate, his or her dinner is served on a special red plate that says Today is Your Special Day. In Carolyn's family birthdays are also accompanied by the most awful version of the Happy Birthday song that most people have ever heard. The beauty in it is that it's intentionally awful and the worse it gets the better. It's a lot of fun and certainly involves some showmanship to see who can top it off just right. Of course, the most important tradition is spending time together as a family. In our families we always prioritize being there for each other and for important events.
