We became parents in 2016 through adoption with our son, Knox, and when he entered our world it seemed our hearts grew twice their normal size! We never knew you could love someone you just met so much. There are no words for the feeling besides pure appreciation and love.

We got the call we were chosen 2 hours before he was born, dropped everything and headed to him. We were honored and blessed to meet the birth family and get to know them and their extended family. We laughed, cried, and tried to learn as much as we could. We were able to go to dinner with the birth family before leaving and got to spend some more quality time with each other. Today, we exchanged emails, and send pictures and letters every 6 months and look to do so with our future child if you’re open to it.

We are now ready to grow our family and know without a doubt, adoption is the right choice for us. We can't wait for Knox to have the gift of a sibling and a lifetime companionship. We believe that having a sibling who is adopted will be a benefit to our children as we celebrate their unique stories and they will always have that connection. We know that having a big brother can give a child someone to play with, learn from, and look up to. We are very excited for our future!

In our leisure time we just enjoy spending time as a family. We try to get outside and enjoy nature as much as possible whether it be walking the state parks, playing in the backyard, making snow angels, or attending the many carnivals and fairs that the Midwest has to offer! If weather doesn't permit we make the most of playing inside making forts, playing hide-n-seek, building Lego's, coloring, and reading books. Our son is at the age where he wants to learn and help and this is our favorite age so far as he's developing his independence and it’s such a joy to experience.

Wisconsin is home of the Packers and Brewers and this is a BIG deal in our state. We have grown to love them both and game days are usually spent cheering for our home team with food and family! We both come from sports backgrounds as Kelly played volleyball all through middle and high school and Stuart played baseball from the time he was a little boy and all through high school. We look forward to sharing our favorite pastimes with our children and looking forward to them finding their own hobbies and sports with our downtime and being their biggest fans.

We have a love, passion, and respect for the outdoors which started at a young age growing up near the ocean. For the past 34 years Kelly and her family have made an annual trip to the Florida Keys where they camp for a week the first week of lobster season. Through a mutual friend Stuart started going 23 years ago. Stuart's family started going shortly after and now we all mark our calendar at the beginning of the year and look forward to it every day leading up to it. We lobster, kneeboard, tube, snorkel, relax in the pool, have the best fish-frys, and fall in love with the daily sunsets over the horizon. It's absolutely breathtaking to say the least! The campground is a family friendly location as we plan on making this a trip for as long as we are blessed to be able to do so and can’t wait to continue it with our children.

Our families are overjoyed with our decision to adopt again. They watched us as we tried to grow our family over the years and during the adoption of our son in 2016. They have been the biggest support system through all our ups and downs. Our families are excited to add to the family, for Stuart's side it will be the 3rd grandchild and on Kelly's the 5th!

Stuart was born and raised in Florida where he has one older sister. Kelly was also born and raised in Florida being the middle child and only girl with two brothers. Both of our families live in Florida just minutes away from each other, and they often get together even when we're not around! We travel home at least twice a year where we always gather as a unit grilling out on the porch, sharing many laughs, telling embarrassing stories of our childhood, and creating new memories with our families and friends. We always make a day visiting our very special Grandmothers picking up lunch from our favorite sandwich shop in town enjoying our one-on-one visit! You can also count on a trip to the ocean putting our toes in the sand regardless of the time of year!

Our families also travel up to us by car or plane twice a year as well. We love seeing them as much as possible and enjoy taking them to the local orchard to pick apples as it’s become an annual tradition, playing in snow, walking the state parks, viewing Lake Michigan, enjoying the outdoors Pinterest projects, and cooking out.

We reside in a safe, quaint town in Wisconsin that is booming with life! It has that homey, small town feel with action-packed Friday nights of football, local fish-frys, fireworks twice a year, several carnivals, and don't forget the annual fair! We have an awesome library with toddler dance party Tuesdays and several parks minutes from us with tons of family events we love and hope to create fun memories with our children.

We have a great support system of neighbors and friends where we get together often. Our neighbors are the best and can truly count on them if we ever needed anything.

We spend most of our time outside or in the kitchen and living room. We are lucky to have a 30-acre field behind our house where we love to watch the wildlife (deer, turkey, birds). We have loved adding our personal touches to our home with DIY projects and are in the process of finishing the basement with 2 bonus rooms where we are looking to make one a guest room and the other a game room. Our schools are top notch and are just minutes from us so our little one will not be too far from home!

We are Stuart and Kelly and are grateful you're taking the time to get to know us better. We have been married for 10 years but have been in each other's lives since our early teens nearly 20 years ago! With this we were able to start our relationship on a solid foundation of friendship, love, and stability and know this has helped us with our journey of ups and downs to parenthood.

We can't imagine the difficult decision you have to face but we admire your strength and courage and know it's not taken lightly. After having surgery resulting in the loss of reproductive organs we knew our journey to parenthood would be a challenge. We completed IVF resulting in two miscarriages, which guided us to the best decision we have ever made, adoption. Our 3 year journey to become parents we feel, has only made us appreciate things so much more. We know, without a doubt that adoption is how we would love to grow and complete our family knowing it's impossible without strong women like you. We are well aware that being parents is one of the most difficult roles we can have but know it's also the most rewarding. We truly have soaked it in not wanting to miss a thing, and we would love to share with you your child's growth and experiences through pictures, letters, and emails if you desire.

It's eerie in life how even though we don't understand why things happen to people, in time we know that everything happens for a reason. We have found peace in knowing this and a big part of our journey has been HOPE. During our wedding vows we stated to each other, " I choose you" and who knew when we exchanged our vows to become a family that we will hopefully hear those words again from a very special person like you, to grow our family!

Education and health are very important to us. We have a love and appreciation for the outdoors where we like to spend a lot of our time taking in nature's beauty. We can't wait to teach our children not only the big things in life but also the little things like blowing bubbles, clapping, making silly faces, and just making them laugh as often as possible! Although we look forward to educating our children, we know they will teach us far more than we will ever be able to teach them. There is such a beauty in learning through the eyes of a child and realizing how many ways you can see things and learn from their perspective.

We are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to grow our family and are excited to provide your baby with a fun, loving home and a big brother. We both have siblings and hope to provide this to our son, Knox, where they can have someone to play with, learn from, and lean on. We look forward to celebrating their unique adoption stories and how they grew in our hearts before we even met. We believe that having a sibling who is adopted will be a benefit for our children as they will have a special bond that most won't understand and lead them to a lifelong companionship!

There aren't words that can truly show you who we are as people, but we hope that something in this letter touches your heart. We hope that learning more about us will give you peace of mind as you make a very difficult decision. We can promise to be devoted, present parents. We can promise to give unconditional love and be supportive to your child's life endeavors and give the best guidance for personal and professional success. We have been blessed with a happy, loving family and are truly grateful for everything we have. We can't wait to expand our family and share it with this child!

With love and respect,

Stuart & Kelly