Hello
I caught Emily’s eye when we were both on the cross country team in high school, and we’ve kept up with each other through life’s ups and downs ever since. We share a curiosity about the world, and love discovering where my passion for sports and statistics overlap with Emily’s passion for languages and history.
We spent our 20s in New York City, working, going to grad school, and exploring New Jersey by bicycle in our free time. We moved back to the Midwest, to Indiana, for Emily’s first job as a professor. I never missed a Bears’ game when we lived on the East Coast, so I was thrilled to move back to the Chicago area in 2016.
We had been married for nine years when our daughter Maisie (4) was born. Conceiving Maisie was a difficult process, and we chose to grow our family through adoption after doctors advised against another pregnancy.
Now, Maisie’s curiosity guides our family. Her eagerness to share what makes her happy – riding her bicycle, singing songs, chasing butterflies – makes us think that she will be a wonderful big sister.
Emily says:
Ryan is focused, calm and methodical. While I can be anxious and detail-oriented, he keeps in mind the big picture. He is reliable and keeps everything together for our family. In adoption as in other things, this will strengthen us.
Ryan says:
Emily is the most conscientious and caring person I know. Her first thought is always regarding how she can actively help people around her. Emily's actions and feelings are invaluable to our family's relationship and to everyone she interacts with.
Open Adoption
Whether through visits, phone calls, email or social media, we are committed to ongoing openness. Your story will be part of our family’s every day.
We hope to build a relationship with you where we are all comfortable expressing our hopes and needs as we define what openness will look like for our families.
Although your feelings and our feelings about openness might change over the months and years, we hope we can agree that the wellbeing of your child will be at the center of everyone’s decisions.
Parenting Plan
Ryan works full time as a software developer in Chicago. Under normal circumstances, Ryan returns home about 6 p.m. on weekdays. I work part time as a French instructor at the college level. I work three days a week during the school year and has summers off, leaving plenty of time for bike rides to the park or trips to the library with Maisie.
During the Covid-19 stay-at-home order, we feel lucky to be employed in two different industries, in jobs that give us the flexibility to work from home and continue our daughter’s preschool education. In addition to practicing reading and math skills, that education includes a lot of basketball, drawing with chalk, and roller skating.
Upon welcoming a child into our family through adoption, we look forward to taking advantage of parental leave from our employers. In addition, Maisie has three grandparents, an aunt, an uncle, and two cousins who live within a half an hour of our home who can’t wait to help us welcome a second child. Our church community also includes several families who came together through adoption, and who are supporting us on this journey.
