Hello!

Thank you for taking a moment to learn more about us as potential adoptive parents. We, like yourself, are on a unique journey and cannot begin to comprehend what you must be feeling. Even though we’re walking very different roads, our desired destination is the same: providing a loving home for your child. I hope this desire shines through as you read more about us.

About Us

We have always desired to grow our family through adoption. Nate and his sister are adopted from South Korea, and both of us have extended family who are adopted as well.

We have known each other for about 15 years, but started dating while volunteering with a community outreach program in 2017. We quickly bonded over our love of food and navigated dating through a pandemic by honing our skills in the kitchen and learning to love the mundane parts of life together. We got married in 2020, and last year, we moved into what we believe will be our forever home; a spacious modern farmhouse near the Fox River in a quiet suburb surrounded by parks and nature. It’s just steps away from schools and an adorable downtown with a very active community.

We attend a local church that is relatively progressive, very loving and intentionally inclusive. We appreciate the positive impact they have on the local community and their impressive music and arts ministry.

We are both working professionals with advanced degrees and a decent amount of achievement in our respective fields. Both of us have made arrangements to take parental bonding leave immediately upon placement. Nate works from home at least 3 days a week and Kelly plans to work 2–3 days a week once we start a family. While working, we will rely on our parents, two retired and two retiring in the next few years, for childcare. And due to her employment at a school, Kelly is home all summer and during regular school breaks.

Diversity & Openness

Diversity in our relationships (and marriage!) has always been central to who we are. We believe that the world makes more sense when we strive to understand how we are all unique, and embrace those differences rather than run from them in fear. We both grew up in very racially and religiously diverse communities and have friends on both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. Because of our history and value of leaning into differences, we are excited to welcome a child of any race into our family.

We understand that all humans, kids especially, have a natural desire to understand who they are and where they came from. In our own lives, we hold dearly the parts of Nate that were clearly formed by his parents but also love the parts of him that make him unique from his family. We are committed to openness and embrace the role that a birth parent can play in a child’s life, in partnership with us. We are open to sharing as much or as little as you feel comfortable with. We would love to provide life milestone updates and have scheduled visits!

Meet Kelly

Kelly is a fiercely loyal partner, beloved by her friends and family, and an incredible advocate for those in any sort of need. She is a voracious reader, a lover of nature and is very active. She studied Exercise Science in college and went on to get a masters degree in Occupational Therapy. She enjoys concerts, musicals and anything outside. Kelly works as a Pediatric Occupational Therapist in an elementary school.

Meet Nate

Nate is a mostly easy-going, occasionally intense, curious intellectual and is quick to make a joke. He loves to cook, host gatherings for friends/family and go for long bike rides. He studied music in college, and had a wide variety of jobs before settling into his current career. Nate is a senior-level numbers and strategy guy in the advertising industry.

Our Families

We are not currently parenting, unless you count our spoiled pets. We have a loyal and well-trained German Shepherd mix named Ted and a friendly, lazy orange cat named Roger.

We are very fortunate to have all of our parents and siblings within a 20 minute drive of where we live. We spend quite a bit of time with our families, and everyone is very excited to welcome another child into the family! Kelly and I cherish our relationships with our parents and siblings, and are grateful that they will be close and present as we start a family. We both grew up in households that valued openness, honesty and hard work; traits that we hope to model in our home as well. We are fortunate that our parents raised us in homes where we settled our differences through conversation, learned to love through conflict and have sought to deepen their relationships with us both in childhood and now as adults.

Our two immediate families share a lot of similarities. Both of our mothers worked in special ed, both of our fathers worked in manufacturing. We both have a brother and sister. Our brothers are tall, natural entertainers who love sports, and are loud. Both of our sisters are short, trusted friends who are stubbornly unique and loud.

Nate’s extended family is almost entirely local and gathers for all major holidays, and most minor ones. Though Kelly’s extended family is a bit more spread out across the country, they gather annually for a family reunion in southwest Michigan where her parents also have a kid-friendly lake house with all the summer toys and activities a child could want.