Hello!
We are Amanda and Fred! Thank you for taking the time to learn about us. We are hopeful to meet you so we can learn more about each other. We would be so grateful and blessed for the opportunity to walk alongside you for this journey.
Our Story
We met during a summer mission trip through Campus Crusade in 2011. We didn’t know then, but God had been working to beautifully orchestrate our love story many years earlier. We both were attending colleges that were 30 minutes apart — Fred in Southern Illinois and Amanda in St. Louis — and our homes were 30 minutes away from each other in the Chicago Suburbs. Our mutual love and fascination for Disney, along with our desire for growing our relationship with Christ, has continued to strengthen our marriage. We have been married since 2016.
Adoption, Parenting and Openness
As we’ve trusted God with our family planning, we found that we were unable to have children and we knew that God had a different plan for our lives. We had been praying for God to reveal that plan. One Sunday during church, God put in our hearts that His plan for our future family was going to be through adoption.
In 2024, we were blessed to adopt our son Leo. We are so honored that we get to be Leo’s parents. Every day, we are filled with love and gratitude as we watch him explore and grow. Leo loves to play with all his toys and always has a smile on his face. He is a very curious child and is always trying to understand how things work, and is very kind and gentle with others.
We are fortunate to have a relationship with Leo’s birth grandparents. We are blessed that as he grows older and has questions, Leo can learn more about his birthmother, who sadly passed away.
We believe that an open adoption will be very important for our future child, since it will allow them to learn more about their birth family as they continue to get older and ask more questions. We look forward to walking alongside you in this journey by sharing photos and updates, and having meetups if you desire that as well.
Meet Amanda
I love all things Disney, which includes Disney movies, plush and vacations. I love to travel with Fred and Leo and also go on vacations with my parents when Fred has to work. My favorite Disney Theme Park is the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Whenever I visit, I instantly feel nostalgic about all my past visits and dream about all my future ones. When I’m not traveling, I work as a pharmacy manager. I love helping customers feel better and teaching and training my entire pharmacy team. At church, I volunteer with both the finance and special events teams. Serving has given me the opportunity to give back to my church community, which has been so supportive and encouraging through life’s ups and downs. I am looking forward to being able to learn from our future child and experience life through their eyes.
Meet Fred
I am a huge fan of football and college and professional wrestling, and I am looking forward to enjoying these events with my future child. I enjoy going to see the newest Star Wars, Marvel and DC movies in theaters on opening weekend with Amanda and my dad. I volunteer at our local church on the tech team to run slides for the message and produce sound for the Sunday service and live stream. I also attend a small group with our church and love being able to discuss the Bible with others and encourage church community. I currently work as a workers compensation attorney in downtown Chicago where I am passionate about litigation, being in court, and find it rewarding when I get to argue a case. I cannot wait to be a parent to our second child and share my love for faith, wrestling and football, and embrace all my future child’s interests.
Our Faith and Family
We belong to a non-denominational Christian church and have been attending since 2016. We love our church because it’s multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-generational. We believe having a strong church community is essential to a successful marriage and family, and we are incredibly blessed by all the support, encouragement and community we have in our church. We both have an amazing community of friends from our church who are like a tight-knit family. They are always there whenever we need anything and we have their back as well. We are so blessed by the community we have gained from our church.
With all our immediate family living close by, we get to see everyone all the time and get to hang out all together during all the holidays. Both our families are close to each other, which has been so special for us. We all support each other whenever anyone needs help and work together as one big family.
Thank You
Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about us. We would be beyond blessed to parent your child in an open adoption where we can continue to grow our relationship with you and our family. We promise to raise your child to love themselves, love others, pursue their interests and dream big. We will support them through their entire life no matter what challenges they may face and we will always be their biggest cheerleaders.
