There are several different things we like to do in our leisure time.

For Micha, she loves to knit. She can often be found knitting in our living room. A few different things she likes to make are sweaters, hats, and blankets. She has been knitting since she was a seven years old!

In Jesse's leisure time he loves to coach basketball. He works with a team of high school kids coaching them two nights a week. He often times is attending their tournaments on weekends in the summer.

Together, we love to watch movies, or binge watch popular TV shows! We typically watch at least one movie a night, or will at least watch a TV show that we are both interested in.

Adoption has affected us personally. Micha's grandmother is adopted. She was adopted in 1942, a time when adoptions were closed. Because of this, we always knew she was adopted, but we did not know many details of her adoption. We think this is a very important piece of adoption and always will be open with our future child about their life story. We have always valued that adoption is such a sacrificial choice and are forever grateful to Bonnie's birth mother for making that choice. When we were considering how to expand our family, our personal connection to adoption led us to decide this was the best path for us to take.

We believe addressing cultural diversity is very important when it comes to adoption. One of our goals is that when we adopt a child, that we are able to help him/her know their heritage as well as the different things that could be important to their culture.

Jesse has been coaching inner city youth basketball the last few years and while he thinks this has helped him to better understand cultural differences, it has also made it clear just how large some of the differences can be and the importance of pursuing relationship and community with people are different than him.

We hope that we will be able to adopt other cultural traditions different than our own and make the child feel like our goal is for them to always feel like our home is a place for them to grow and be nurtured within their specific cultural identity.

We reside in the state of Kansas. Our community is a small suburb of a large city. We are about 15 minutes from the heart of downtown. We love our community because it is quiet and safe, but we have the ability to enjoy all of the fun features a big city has to offer just a few minutes down the road. Our community is very supportive of families. There are many children who live on our street. There is an elementary school within walking distance of our home and you will frequently see families walking to school in the mornings.

Our home has two levels, a main level which has our living room, kitchen, dining room, and primary bedroom. The upstairs of our home has a small sitting area as well as two additional rooms. Our favorite room where we spent the majority of our time is the living room. It is very cozy and inviting and we love the natural light our windows provide.

With the addition to being within walking distance of the schools, there is a great community pool and park within walking distance of our home. We frequently walk our dogs to the park and back, we cannot wait to walk our future child to the park and spend afternoons playing with them.

We enjoy spending as much time as possible with our extended family. Micha's parents, Mike and Gretchen, live fairly close to us and we typically see them on a weekly basis. Whether we are enjoying a meal together or watching a movie together, we always find ways to have fun. Micha has one brother, Montana, who also lives close that we see on a weekly basis.

Jesse's parents live a few hours away and we see them several times a year. Jesse has three sisters, Hannah, Lydia, and Abbie. Hannah lives close to us and we see her on a weekly basis because we attend the same church.

One of our favorite family traditions is going to cut down our Christmas tree together. It is so fun to bring the tree home and then spend the rest of the day decorating the house. It is a great way to kick off the holiday season. Micha also loves baking around the holidays. One of her favorite things to bake is pie. Her grandmother, Bonnie taught her how to make pie crust when she was a little girl. Uniquely, Bonnie is adopted. Adoption has always been a very important part of Micha's family. They are extremely supportive of our journey and they can't wait to see how our story unfolds.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read our profile. We are truly humbled that you have taken the time to consider us. We wanted to take a little time to be more personal with you about our lives and the journey we have been on thus far.

We have been married for two years, although it feels like we have lived a lifetime in those two years. Several months after getting married, we found out Micha was expecting. This was outside of our plans but we took it with stride and tried to make the most of having a baby during our newlywed years. When Micha was nearing full-term, she experienced severe medical issues that caused our baby boy to pass away. On top of that being the most difficult news we had to process, Micha was becoming increasingly sick. She nearly lost her life. After recovering, we had to have some difficult conversations about what this meant for us and the future of building a family. We learned that Micha's medical issues would most likely reoccur, and ultimately decided that her carrying a child to grow our family was not a risk we were willing to take.

After grieving all of the loss we had experienced, we knew that we wanted to complete our family with children and adoption was on the forefront of our minds. Even before we had experienced our loss, we had discussed adoption as part of our journey to complete our family. Micha's grandmother was adopted and we felt called that adoption would be a part of our story. We believe our desire to adopt before loss was something God had been preparing our hearts for knowing what we would eventually face.

We cannot wait to grow our family. We look forward to what it will look like for a child to be a part of our daily lives. We have so much love to give, we can't wait to pour our love into a baby. Our desires and dreams for raising our future child are huge. We cannot wait to experience every stage of life with them from sleepless nights, to weekend-sporting events; attending church with them, and teaching them about God's love.

Because we have experienced unimaginable loss, we truly believe this gives us a special perspective on what role you will play in our lives. We are familiar with the grief that comes with a loss. We want you to know and trust that we are open to whatever form of contact you are comfortable with. Whether that looks like exchanging emails or the occasional phone call, to potentially setting up a future visit. We will certainly send letters and pictures to give the assurance that this child is raised in a way that would honor your desires and make you proud.

We cannot wait for the journey that lies ahead of us. Please know that we are praying for you and the future child as you are making tough decisions. We look forward to whatever the future may hold for both of us.

Sincerely,

Jesse & Micha