Our Open Adoption Experience

Since the beginning, we wanted to become parents together.  We hoped and dreamed together about the joy, laughter, hugs and kisses that would surround our family. After experiencing infertility and accepting that we could not conceive a child, our strong desire to raise children together led us to embrace open adoption as the way to expand our family.

To be honest, we were a little scared when we first started on our adoption path.  We had some fears about how this would all unfold, and about the possibility of being hurt along the way. As we read and learned more about open adoption, we learned to put some of these fears to rest.

Two days after Christmas 2007, we were contacted by a special young woman who wanted to talk with us about an adoption plan. A few months later, our beautiful daughter Julianna was lovingly placed in our arms by her birthparents, Martha and Branden. Though they were both only 18 at the time, they made an incredibly loving and mature decision to allow us to be Julianna’s parents. We are raising our daughter in a fully open adoption because we believe that a child should not have to lose one family in order to gain another.

We regularly talk and visit with Julianna’s extended birth families both at their homes in Texas and at our home in California. As our relationships have evolved, we have grown to trust and respect each other with real affection and we will always share a unique and enduring bond with them. We faithfully honor the important role of Julianna’s birth family in her life and will welcome the same level of openness with our second child’s birth family.