Emily & Ryan

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You’re on this website because you love your child. We are here for the same reason. We haven’t met this child yet, but our love has been growing for years.

We are Emily, Ryan and Maisie, and we are excited to share our story with you. If this feels right, we’d love to become part of your adoption plan and learn about you.

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.

Emily

Knocked out her two front teeth. Twice. The baby teeth and adult teeth.
Lived in France when she was young.
Speaks English, French, German fluently, and a little Spanish and Russian.
Rode a bike across Iowa in College.
Regularly has a stack of half-read books by her bed.
Just last year tucked her security blanket away in a drawer rather than sleep with it every night.

Ryan

Ran over 500 miles in a summer in high school.
Is a sucker for stories with a villain, a hero and a happy ending.
His high school nickname was Pup, when he was a freshman running varsity.
Worked one summer at Dairy Queen, one as a janitor, and one in the Public Works Department of his town.
Is a HUGE Cubs, Bears and Bulls fan.
Rode on his grandpa's tractor on the family farm in Iowa when he was a toddler.

Emily and Ryan love traveling. Here they are in Geneva, Switzerland.
Our friends have been part of our adoption journey from the beginning.
We’ve mastered the art of maintaining long-distance friendships with a few people we became close to in college.
Ryan came of age during the Chicago Bulls’ reign over the NBA and still loves playing and watching basketball.
Emily celebrates getting her Ph.D. from NYU with a dear classmate.
Ryan carved the pumpkin for Maisie’s first Halloween.
Maisie helped Grandma make Christmas cookies. Three grandparents, one set of cousins and an aunt and uncle live relatively close.
Maisie relaxes on the deck with Grandpa in his hammock.
Maisie, with Mommy and a great-aunt, loved her first beach vacation.
Going to the park is one of our favorite things to do, and we always run into friends.
Daddy is sometimes very silly with Maisie, and she loves it.
In comparison to some, our families are small, but we have reunions every couple of years, and nearly everyone attends.
Maisie rides her bike while I run to the train station to meet Ryan's train home from work. (Sept. 12, 2019)
Maisie and Ryan bundled up to go trick-or-treating in 2019.
Maisie loves to play with her friend Marie.