While we don't currently have children we have family and a lot of friends who do and it is such a joy to watch them experience parenthood and witness their children grow up.

It is natural for parents to want to share the things they love with their children; Shaun is a big football fan and it is now something we enjoy keeping up with as a couple and we hope this can become a fun weekly family activity in the fall. Amanda loves having afternoon tea and tries to find a spot for us to enjoy this every time we travel and we think this would be a fun family tradition as well. However, if our child winds up not liking these activities that's OK too, because what we are most excited about is watching our child develop their own personality with their own unique talents and interests.

Our hope for our child is that they feel loved for who they are and have the freedom to try new things. Our goal is to provide them the time, support and resources to pursue their passions. We want to raise someone to who is loving, compassionate, full of confidence and life.

Amanda loves Shaun for his big heart and fun loving nature. Although we are both outgoing people Shaun is the more outgoing one and is more spontaneous while Amanda tends to be a planner. Shaun is not afraid of a challenge and takes pride in learning new things from installing our outdoor lighting on his own to learning how to cook. Shaun has a great sense of humor and can always bring a smile to Amanda's face.

Shaun loves Amanda for her warmth and thoughtfulness. While Shaun focuses on big picture practical things Amanda has spent a lot of effort on the little details that makes a house a home. Amanda plans most of our trips and is constantly thinking of ways to make things special from decking out Shaun's car with items featuring his favorite football team in the middle of the night before Christmas to putting together fondue dinners at home.

We feel what makes our relationship work is that we are able to balance each other well. While we both believe in putting 100% into our family we understand that there are times when one needs to put in a little more effort at home but at the end of the day everything we achieve is a team effort.

We always had a feeling that adoption would be part of our story and it was something we talked about before getting married. We know that there are many wonderful couples looking to adopt so like many couples we started trying to conceive naturally. After trying for a while without success we often struggled wondering what should our path be - should we keep trying to conceive or should we pursue adoption? In July of 2020 Amanda had an emergency surgery for an Ectopic pregnancy and lost her right fallopian tube and had cysts on her left ovary removed. As painful as this experience was it gave us great clarity and strengthened our bond as a couple. We always knew that we wanted to grow our family but the loss highlighted to us how deep that desire was within us. We felt at this point the message from God was clear, there was a reason all these years we had a soft spot in our hearts for adoption and we knew he was telling us it was time to pursue that path.

We live in the suburbs of Memphis in north Mississippi in a two-story, four-bedroom home. The upstairs of our home has two bedrooms - one of which is a guest room for when family and friends come to visit and the other is Amanda's home office, these two rooms share a bathroom and there is also a large bonus room with another office attached. We imagine that this bonus room will make a great future playroom. Downstairs is the kitchen, dining room, great room, our bedroom and an additional bedroom with hall bathroom that will be the nursery. Our plan is that this downstairs room will be our child's room once they are old enough to sleep in a crib on their own until they are old enough to use the stairs on a regular basis without supervision. Once the child is older, we will then swap the downstairs room into the guest bedroom so they can feel like they have a little more independence - and the additional space that comes with the needs of a growing child. We have a large fenced-in backyard that we would love to eventually have a swing set and pool in.

Our neighborhood is quiet and very walkable and we have a small park within the neighborhood and a large community park is up the street from us. Nearby in Memphis is a wonderful children's museum, zoo, as well as many parks, museums and gardens.

Right now our immediate family consists of us and our two dogs Buddy and Bella.

Shaun's parents live in Southern California in the home he grew up in. Shaun's brother, Jason, lives about 45 minutes from us with his wife Tanja, their five children - Tanner, Alex, Scarlett, Joey and Max and their dog Daisy. Shaun's parents are thrilled to add a 6th grandchild to the family and our nieces and nephews are excited about having a little cousin and have already given several name suggestions!

Amanda's dad lives about 1.5 hours away with his two dogs Chip and Winston. This will be the first grandchild for Amanda's dad and he is so incredibly excited to be a grandfather. Additionally, Amanda has a sister, Mary, who lives in Chicago.

Shaun has a cousin who is adopted and Amanda has a cousin who adopted her daughter so we have close family members who have given us great perspectives on adoption and served as positive role models for how to be open about adoption in our family.

It is hard to write to someone you've never met. At this point you've seen our home, our families and hopefully gotten to know a lot about who we are as a couple. But we still don't know anything about you and don't want to make any presumptions either. What we do know is that we are all parents trying to work through a situation we didn't expect to be in, and that we all have the best interest of your child in our hearts.

You've seen lots of photos of the life that we have built together and we hope that those photos and videos convey the love we have in our hearts for each other and for a child. Every day can't be a trip to the beach or non-stop fun but we promise that every day will be filled with love. We pledge to you that the best interest of your child will always be our top priority and we hope that you will have an ongoing relationship. We would love to connect with you via zoom or facetime on a regular basis in addition to sending photos and letters but of course want to work with you on what you will be comfortable with as well.

On our first date as we talked about what we had in common we discovered that we were both in some of the same organizations in college and that we had been at the same conference in 2006. Knowing who were both were back then if we had met at that conference we never would have had any romantic interest in one another. We realized it was divine intervention that we never met those years ago because we were meant to meet later in 2013, when we had both grown into the people we are now. We both had a strong feeling early on in our relationship that this was the one but we took our time and really got to know each other before making that commitment. People often talk about cold feet or jitters on their wedding day but for us it was the calmest we have ever been, we knew that this was exactly where we were supposed to be.

Last year we had that similar feeling. We had spent years thinking that adoption might one day be part of our story, but at times questioned if it was something we should actually pursue. Then we had great clarity and we knew without any doubt that this was how we were meant to grow our family. We share this with you not only to assure you that our commitment to each other and bringing a child into our family is strong, but to describe to you the hope that we have for you. We know that you are looking at the profiles of many other wonderful couples and that you may still be considering parenting yourself, but we hope with all our hearts that you will have that absolute moment of clarity where you can say this is it, this is meant to be. If that winds up being yourself or another couple than we wish you and your child the very best, but if you are reading this and think we could be the ones than please know that we are so excited to meet you and build that deeper connection.

With Love,

Shaun & Amanda