Carl and Theresa

Hello!

Welcome, Fellow Adventurer!

We're Carl & theresa

Thanks for taking the time to open up our profile and get to know us! We have so much respect for you and your courage in considering an adoption plan. We want you to know that we see your love for your child, and we’re honored that you would consider us as potential parents for your little one.

So why is this book in your hands right now? We’re Carl and Theresa, and we’ve always wanted to be parents. We’re both from big families and have tons of nieces and nephews, but as fate would have it, we’ve been trying for over eight years of the thirteen we’ve been married, and we’re unable to have a child biologically.

Our life together has been an adventure filled with exciting and joyful moments, but also with some unexpected twists and turns. We are grateful for every unexpected path that has been opened for us, and our journey to adoption is without a doubt the greatest adventure and honor of our lives.

Many people in our lives have been touched by different parts of adoption: We have friends who are birth parents, one of our best friends was adopted, and another of our best friends has two younger siblings who joined his family through adoption. We’d love the chance to get to know you and offer you and your child a place in our family through open adoption. Your child will be loved and cherished, and we’ll do everything to make sure that their life will be filled with laughter, good stories, and adventures of their own.

Carl & Theresa

Get to know us!

our promise

of Openness

There is room in our hearts for you. It’s a room built through the weight of infertility, and the loss of two children before we met them. It’s a library formed through adopted friends who didn’t know their birth parents until adulthood, and learning how to offer something more. It’s a handshake created by a desire to collaborate with you, to learn about you and to share with you. It’s an embrace built on God’s love, which calls us to care for all people. It’s a love for your child and all their potential, no matter what choice you make. It’s a room made by hope, small and nestled beneath all the ills of the world, cradled by faith, nurtured by the uncertainty of the future, calling us to move forward alongside you. There is room in our hearts for you.

Hi, I’m Theresa!

I ENJOY

Hey, I’m Carl.

I ENJOY

Writing
Video games
Collecting Transformers & robots
Movies
Gundam models
Tamagotchis
Learning about animals & dinosaurs
Board games

Our Family Values

Communication

Communication is the core of what makes our relationship so strong! We’re honest about how we feel, because we’ve created an environment where honesty is always met with support and without judgment. A lot of people in our life are surprised at how little conflict we have, but it’s really just that no conflict ever grows to be a big one because we talk through it all.

Creativity

Creativity is also at the heart of our relationship. Carl writes and draws, Theresa plays the piano and reads a ton. We love nurturing our nieces’ and nephews’ imaginations and giving people in our lives an avenue where they can share their own stories, art and music. Part of what won Theresa’s heart in the first place was the stories Carl would share and the little pictures he still draws for her!

Gratitude

Gratitude has been key to getting through tough times. When it comes to our adventures with infertility, being able to step back and look at the people and blessings God’s put in our life really helps us stay positive and excited for the future. Whenever things are challenging, our appreciation for the people around us and our faith that every sad moment leads to something happy gives us the perseverance to take on the next day with gladness.

Love

Love is like…well that’s almost a given, right? Our admiration and respect for each other grows every day and encourages us to make sure we’re showing how much we care every moment we can. We enjoy showing our family how much we love them through acts of service (like babysitting, taking people to the airport, or buying someone dinner), and we believe that God’s love for us is something we’re called to echo as often as we can.

The Place

We call home

Our house is a decent sized townhome in the suburbs that was built in the early ‘70’s. It has three bedrooms and three bathrooms, with a nice living room and decks on the front and back of the house. We’re a middle unit between a retired realtor and a retired Italian racecar driver.

Take a look into our home…

Meet our families

We’re very close with our families! Theresa’s siblings all live within about an hour or less from us, so family gatherings happen once or twice a month and we’re the go-to babysitters most of the time. A lot of Carl’s family lives within about an hour’s drive, but some are scattered across the country, so they don’t get a chance to be together as often but they chat daily in a family message group. All of our siblings (yes all 14!) are funny, kindhearted people, and our parents are supportive and excited for us to get to be parents too! Since many of our siblings have kids of their own (19 to be exact), they’re excited to add a new niece or nephew to the crew.

Family Time

Holidays

Holidays are spent with family at either of our parents’ houses, and often overlap with birthdays as well. There’s almost always a family event every few weekends, and they’re always filled with food, laughter, and great stories. Carl’s birthday happens to fall on a holiday, so it’s exciting to tie the two events together, while Theresa’s family has a gift exchange for Christmas where somehow the same Anakin Skywalker doll has been passed from family to family for almost a decade!

Our

future

We plan on spending as much time with our child as we can — Theresa works from home and Carl has very flexible hours. It’s a hope for one of us to be a stay at home parent and care for our child rather than using a daycare. If ever we need help, we also have many siblings with young children living near us as well, and Theresa’s parents are both retired, live nearby, and are excited to care for our child as well.

We also have lots of friends who are excited to meet our child. Some are adopted, some are parents who created an adoption plan for their child, and some have adoptive siblings as well. Carl’s best friend has two adopted siblings from China, and his honorary older sister is a biracial transracial adoptee herself. We have a diverse and caring network of people in our lives who can give us advice on the hurdles of adoption and understanding other cultures so that we can celebrate our child’s heritage and embrace everything that makes them uniquely them!

Roads Go Ever On...

Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end! It’s a lot, right? (Especially the part with the amount of siblings. How can two people have that many siblings? We’re shocked too).

In all seriousness, we know this is a very hard choice, and while we haven’t been in your shoes, we empathize with the difficulty of this decision. We admire you for considering an adoption plan, and we’d be eternally honored if you chose us to parent your child. We promise to stand by the openness you choose with us, and we’ll make sure your child always knows how they came to be part of our family. Thank you again for taking the time to get to know us a little, and we look forward to a chance to get to know you more. It’ll be a great adventure.

Carl & Theresa

Thanks for getting to know us!

We’d love to hear from you. Say Hello!