We met in 2015 at 20 years old, in a local community group. The first day that Jules joined, the group went out for cupcakes and coffee, and we ended up sitting together. It was a wonderful introduction- after only an hour or so talking, we exchanged numbers. We became fast friends, finding that we shared a love of art, music, the outdoors, and good food. We hung out together all the time- Caitlin would often come home from college classes to find Jules sitting in her kitchen talking to her mom, and Jules would often wake up to texts from Caitlin asking about going on another adventure around the Bay Area.

By the end of 2016, Jules finally got the nerve up to ask Caitlin out on a real date, and she immediately said yes. Our first official date was ice skating at our downtown ice rink, and then going out for Thai food, where we ended up talking until the restaurant closed around us.

From the beginning of our romantic relationship, it was clear that we made a great partnership. Our life goals were all aligned: get married, go on adventures together, build a community around us, and raise children. We were married surrounded by our wonderful community on April 9th, 2022. And married life has been great! We laugh, create art, adventure, love, and journey through times both joyful and difficult together, just like we did when we first met.

We love to go on an adventure, be it small or big. Sometimes the adventures are little, and we find joy in a short trip up to the county parks in the mountains above our house, going to a museum, or exploring a new specialty grocery store for fun flavors. We are lucky enough to go on some big adventures too! We have been to Costa Rica, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, D.C., Ohio, and all over California together, and we love a good road trip with friends, family, or just the two of us. We’re big fans of camping and of trying new things, especially new foods, and we live in a great area for day trips or fun local festivals.

It’s extremely important to us that our children get to experience the beauty and diversity of the world and its cultures. Whether that is through art, festivals, foods, community relationships, books, or family trips, we want our child to grow up with the same adventure opportunities we’ve had! We believe that going on adventures is a great way to grow a child’s open mind and show them all the amazing things this world has to offer.

Our marriage has been a fun excuse to join our family traditions. Some of our favorites:

We celebrate Christmas with both sides of our family: cutting down a real tree, gifting new pajamas each year, and eating Scandinavian pancakes on Christmas morning. We have a Secret Santa with Jules’ extended family, and pass out stockings on Christmas morning. We are eagerly anticipating our child's excitement for waking up to Santa’s gifts on Christmas! As an interfaith family, we also mark the Jewish Shabbat each week, and celebrate many Jewish holidays with our friends throughout the year. We host fun Passover seders, enjoy the carnival on Purim, eat honey and apples for Jewish New Year, appreciate our Earth on Tu B’shvat, and make lots of delicious food to share for Hannukah. We are so looking forward to showing our child all of the fun, meaningful, and delicious Jewish traditions we enjoy! For birthdays, we always make a special dessert for the guest of honor, decorated with things they love. We will usually host a dinner in their honor, and everyone gathers at our home to surround that person with congratulations and love.

It's important to us that we get to have a family dinner regularly, which includes our friends as well. We are so excited to have our child experience the joyful routine of regular fun family dinners, and for them to hear the stories and wisdom shared at our meals.

Our community is important to us, and we look forward to raising a family surrounded by their support. We grew up with strong bonds to our families, and we want our child to have that same experience. We hope that our child will be deeply connected to our community so they feel supported by people from all walks of life.

We are very close with our families. We live in Cait’s childhood home with her parents, Lee and Dan, and we live minutes from Jules’ parents and younger brother, Phil, Mary, and Tim. Cait’s younger brother, James, and his fiancee Shelby, live in San Diego and visit regularly. We are blessed that all of Cait’s grandparents are located within 2 hours of our home, and our large extended families come to see us often!

Our friend group is a huge part of our life, and we consider them to be our family-by-choice. We have been blessed to be together with them to celebrate their many victories in the past few years: weddings, doctorates, birthdays, and more! With friends across California, Texas, and Oregon, our guest room rarely goes empty for long. We try to spend one evening a week talking over video calls with our chosen family– playing games, discussing our days, and sharing companionship.

Our community is so excited to meet our child, and are already so dedicated to loving and supporting them through every part of life!

We currently live in California in a multi-generational home with Caitlin's parents, and share in a beautiful suburban zone full of families of all ages. Caitlin grew up in this house, and knows the neighborhood extremely well. Our area caters to families with children- between the community center a few blocks away, several schools, weekly farmer's markets, childcare centers, walkable parks, and easy transportation to the downtown areas of multiple cities, you don't have to travel far to do something fun!

The house itself is made for family gatherings. With a huge combined kitchen and dining area, and a large living room and back yard, we have enough space to bring our family and friends over often for casual family dinners and larger celebrations. We're so excited about welcoming a child into the fun of California barbecuing season! At the same time, we have enough separation with our partitioned hallways to allow for privacy while doing our schoolwork, working from home, or sleeping in on the weekends.

Our favorite part of living here is the community aspect of it, and we can't wait to bring our community to our child. We can spend quality time with older family members, have all our friends over for a weekend movie marathon, see a band play at a local street fair, or just enjoy the beautiful neighborhood while out on our evening walks. There's never an outing here without a few friendly greetings or a fun conversation!

Hi! We’re Caitlin & Jules from California. We’re grateful that you’re spending your time getting to know a bit about us, and we hope to get to know a little about you too. This is an emotional time and we appreciate the energy it takes to look through profile books as you work through the big decisions about pregnancy and adoption.

We’ve been together for nine years, married for three, and we’ve known we wanted to pursue parenthood since the beginning. Family and friends are incredibly important to us: we live in a multigenerational home with Caitlin’s parents, and we often have visitors in our guest room! It’s that shared value of loving our community that really connected us in the beginning of our relationship, and that value has enabled our beautiful chosen family to thrive around us. Caitlin has chosen a flexible career working in training and development for a medical device company to ensure her future ability to be present as a parent, and Jules chose to pursue education in environmental restoration for the same reason. We care deeply about the flexibility of our schedules to enable us to be there for our loved ones, and we want to ensure we are always there for our child.

We both grew up with very connected families. Although Cait’s family has fewer cousins in her generation, she has a large extended family full of adults who always made time for her and included children in their own adventures. She’d love to be able to give that experience to our child through our own network of friends and family members. Jules grew up in a family with many cousins, however, and also hopes to be able to give our child the fun ‘cousin experience’, which we are thrilled about. Jules’ cousins currently have children on the way, and we’re all excited to add another member to their crew.

Because of our love of children and family, we’ve been on the journey to parenthood since near the beginning of our relationship. Over the years, our journey has taken us through considering every parenthood option, from IVF to surrogacy- in the end, we decided that we wanted to build a family through adoption. And, while we hope to grow that family with a baby, we also want to express that adoption is about more than just the number of people in our house. It’s also about bringing a child into a home where we can love on them as much as possible, and nurture them through every stage of development. It’s about our desire to be parents, to love and guide a child, and to have our community of friends and family cheer them on as well.

We hope that we can include our child’s birth family in that community as well, to whatever degree is comfortable for everyone involved. As we know from our adopted loved ones’ experiences, it can be difficult and sometimes painful for birth families to navigate the open adoption relationship, but we want you to know we’re open to contact from letters, photos, and texts to video calls and possibly even visits. It’s our hope we can offer you pictures, stories, and triumphs from our child’s life without making you feel obligated to reciprocate beyond your comfort. It’s our intention for you to always be able to be sure that choosing us was the right decision.

Thank you for taking the time to learn a little about us. We would love to speak more with you about our life and family as well as yours, and answer any questions you may have. We hope that you find the best family match for you, and we will be honored if it’s with us.

Jules & Caitlin