During our leisure time we spend time with our dogs. We also love spending time with friends and family. We love live music and attending concerts. During the summer we spend a lot of time with family at the lake home boating and swimming. We are also big foodies and enjoy trying new restaurants. We are huge Iowa State University fans and always cheer them on during football season. We are also avid baseball fans, even though we cheer for separate teams. Meredith is a huge Chicago Cubs fan while Chad is a diehard St. Louis Cardinals fan. We have a fun family rivalry and enjoy watching the games when they play each other.

Chad also enjoys spending time playing golf, hunting and fishing. His father, brother and he take an annual hunting trip each year and are members at a hunting club. We are members of our local country club and attend many golf and non-golf activities the country club hosts. There is a natural spring nearby our house that we trout fish at. We also like to go kayaking in the local rivers.

Meredith enjoys decorating the house and the weekend generally involves a shopping trip. She loves baking and sharing the goodies with friends and coworkers. Every Christmas she spends a whole weekend making cookies and candy.

Chad About Meredith: The thing I admire most in Meredith is her intelligence. I always find myself learning something from her on a daily basis. Meredith is very much a planner, no matter if it’s a week vacation or a trip to the store. I am not a planner, and this makes us work well together. However, the thing I love most about Meredith is that she is my biggest fan. Being the wife of a college athletics head coach has its challenges. She experiences the wins and losses of each season, the loss of a big recruit, and other highs and lows coaching can bring and is still there cheering me on and making a bad day better.

Meredith About Chad: One of my favorite things about Chad has always been his sense of humor and his ability to enjoy life. No matter what is going on around us, he can find the good in every situation. I love how Chad can calm me down and make me laugh. He is a very go with the flow person and people are naturally drawn to him. I have always known that family is important to him. He always enjoys spending time with family and I love that this is something we share.

We are lucky to live in a diverse town due to the college located here. Every year, the city holds the celebration of nations. Countries from across the world are represented and celebrated here. It is also a great place to gain information and to experience cultures through their eyes.

We have also spent time talking to acquaintances that have experience with international or transracial adoptions and have followed several blogs that focus on this subject. We plan to provide our child with as much information as possible. We want to find ways they can experience their culture and weave it into their daily life in order to share the experiences that make them unique. We feel this is important in assisting the child in having a sense of self. This is one of the reasons we feel a good relationship with the birth mother is important. We would love to learn some of your cultural traditions, celebrate them as a family, and ensure they are passed down.

We live on a cul-de-sac in a college town. We have an elementary school a few blocks away and several parks nearby. We remodeled a lot of things when we moved into our house, but it made it ours. We are lucky to have a nice outdoor space with woods behind our house. We often get to enjoy watching deer, birds, and many other types of wildlife from our kitchen window.

There is a cute historic downtown that is made up of local restaurants and shops. We frequent many of the restaurants and like to find unique items in the shops.

Our town celebrates many holidays. Every year there is a big Christmas parade and it starts with breakfast with Santa. There is also an annual celebration of nations. This allows the town to celebrate the various cultures represented within our community. There is a big parade where people wear their culture clothing and they share their cultural traditions and food with everyone. There is also a big parade for St. Patrick’s Day. They paint the main street green and there are events throughout the whole town to help celebrate.

Our extended family is rather large, and we spend the holidays with them eating, laughing, and playing games. We love Thanksgiving and we always host this holiday at our house. Chad’s family lives in a nearby city and we frequently go visit and spend time with our niece Emma. We recently took her to the Aquarium that just opened. We got to touch stingrays and learned about sharks. We also spend a lot of time at Chad’s family lake house. We are always there on the fourth of July. We spend the weekend boating, swimming, and barbecuing his dad’s famous tri-tip.

Meredith’s family is only a few hours away, and we visit them often. We also spend a lot of time talking through Facetime so we can watch our nephew PJ grow up. Meredith grew up with her cousins being like siblings and they still spend a lot of time together. This will be no different for your child, they will grow up with several cousins to play with, and we know they will make good memories together. Meredith’s parents also come to visit us frequently. Whenever they are in town we have to play Phase 10 to determine the new champion.

We told our family about our plans to adopt at Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone was so excited and there were even tears. We know our parents will love and spoil this child and are excited to babysit.

We first and foremost, thank you. Thank you for making one of the most unselfish decisions anyone can make. And thank you for taking the time to get to know us.

We met online in 2010. We had talked through social media and text messages at first, but then we had our first date. We met at a sushi restaurant and talked for hours. We both loved the role family played in both of our lives and the way we could make each other laugh. Chad proposed on a snowy night in January. In October of 2015, we were married and started our life as a family. Since then we continue to make each other laugh, encourage each other, and make memories together whether that is through long weekend trips, trying new food, cheering on our favorite sports teams, or just sitting on the couch. Our family is made up of us and our two dogs, Vincent and Olive. We are ready to grow our family and begin making new memories.

We know that this must be a confusing and difficult time for you while you are trying to figure out the best options for you and your precious baby. We cannot begin to imagine what you must be feeling, thinking, and experiencing. However, one thing has brought us both to this point-love. We hope that you feel supported and loved no matter where you are at in your journey. We admire you for the love you have for your child and for considering adoption, and we have a lot of love to share. We promise to cherish and love your child with all of our hearts and souls and to provide a safe and happy home. We promise to always strive to give your child every opportunity possible and to make sure we are there to cheer them on at the spelling bee or tee-ball game.

If you decide to make an adoption plan, we want to assure you that we will respect your desires when determining the level of openness to have with your child. You will have an important role in your child’s life and that will not change. We would love to share information, stories and pictures of your child as they grow, reach milestones, and travel through this journey called life.

We are so excited to become parents. We are looking forward to hearing their first word, watching their first steps, tucking them in to bed, teaching them how to ride a bike, or coaching their sports teams. We know that there is more to family than just genetics. We cannot wait to see the excitement on their face as they experience new things and grow into an individual. We want our child to grow up knowing about their birth parent. We will always have the utmost respect for you no matter the decision you make. You will always be spoken highly of in our home and our child’s adoption will be talked about on a regular basis.

Know that as you face this difficult decision, we are praying for you and your baby. We pray that you feel loved and supported and that God will fill you with peace in whatever decision you make.

Thank you again for taking the time to learn about us.

Sincerely,

Chad & Meredith