Andrew and Laura

We are a family of three, Laura (43), Andrew (45), and Nicholas (4) who strive to make our home a safe haven, where we find love and support to face daily and life altering challenges. Past experiences and conviction have led our family to a purposeful drama-free existence, in which disagreements and sadness occur but are not allowed to prevail.

Aside from our school and work routines, our days are filled with cooking, outdoor activities, exercise, reading, playing, and traveling — particularly to Costa Rica, where we have family. Since Nicholas was born, we have sought to enjoy as a family those things that individually or as a couple make us happy. We also try to reinforce core principles through everyday undertakings… spark curiosity when we travel, encourage perseverance when setting up our camping tent, and practice patience when baking. Sharing and serving others is also one of our top priorities and the reason why we have family and friends over frequently, and like to host special occasions like Thanksgiving.

Adoption has always been part of our plans. In fact, when we decided to start a family, we vowed that even if we were able to conceive a child, we would pursue an adoption if we wanted to make our family larger. So, here we are, in the hope of fulfilling that promise.

We want this baby to be aware and proud of their life story. We are committed to consistently proving to them, through our words and actions, how much we treasure their uniqueness in our family. We also want them to get to know you and your story, with empathy and respect. Providing honest answers to their inquiries about adoption, as they present themselves in different stages of their development, is in our view the best way to build trust and make this child feel loved and supported — by you and us.

Conscious of the brave decision you are making, we want to assure you that we will honor your choice by caring for this child as best as we can for the rest of our lives. We are ready to celebrate the beauty of adoption and relentlessly face its challenges.

This child will be loved by the three of us and our extended family, encouraged to explore the world and push limits, protected fiercely, and given confidence to raise their voice in English and Spanish (and maybe other languages too). But most importantly, throughout their life we will always prioritize their happiness.

The choice to adopt is inextricably linked to the choice to expand our family. When we decided to start our family with our now four-year-old son, we had one thought, “we have so much fun in this family and there is so much love here, why wouldn’t we share it?” That notion began our journey to expand our family, and now adoption is again a chance for us to share the love and fun we have with the next member of the family. For us, adoption is not a second choice, but the sole opportunity to bring into our family a unique child we simply could not have been able to conceive, and be part of his/her exceptional life story

Our lifestyle centers around the three passions.

First is TRAVELING. We love to travel to eat new foods, meet new people, and experience new things. Whenever we have the chance, we seek to entertain ourselves with excursions (big or small).

Second is FOOD. We enjoy spending time in our kitchen and trying to make (and eat) new dishes. We treat cooking as an excursion within our own home.

The third is our FAMILY AND FRIENDS. We entertain people in our home for dinners, parties, and extended stays. With our life and work taking us all over the world, we have many friends who come to spend time with us, and opening our home to them makes us happy. Aside from this, we spend time trying new activities and doing some we enjoy like camping, hiking, stand-up paddling, and reading every night.

It is both easy and hard to write about Laura. Easy because the sentence about her is quite clear, “she is the love of my life who every day makes me and our family better.” It is hard because the reasons for this are too long to write and so, I have to choose just one. Laura’s capacity for love without drama is astounding. She truly loves unconditionally and brings no ego or insecurity to the relationship. That quality creates a deep love that we share and provide for our son, which feels so strong and yet so effortless. As my partner in life, this kind of foundational and effortless love allows us to face anything together with total honesty, constant communication, and joy (three more of her top qualities).

Andrew is a wonderful life partner, reliable, smart, and fun. And all this makes him a great father, committed to filling our lives with loving memories and offering us unconditional support. I honestly don’t know how he manages, but he is always present and ready to plan and embark on adventures with his family. He finds camping spots, checks the weather to organize hiking and standup paddling outings, and coordinates visits with our family in Costa Rica. Andrew can cook anything, from a pizza to a fancy French stew, and more than 20 pounds of turkey with various sides for our friends and family on Thanksgiving. More importantly, he is an honest man and good human being. Andrew is compassionate and engages with everyone, making friends wherever he goes.

Our home and neighborhood are really an extension of us and our lifestyle. We have a good amount of space to cook, host friends and family, and play. Since we live in a large city, we have access to great museums, theaters, libraries, and even embassies from all over the world. However, our neighborhood and community are small and focused on families. On our street alone, there are six families with children under five and our next-door neighbors’ two kids have become like siblings to our son. We lean on each other for simple things like ingredients for a recipe, as well as more important things like watching our kids while they play at the park or in one of the backyards.

As we have mentioned, our family and friends are very important to us; both the families in which we grew up and the family we have created. We are very lucky to have made friends that are as much, and sometimes more, family than some of our immediate family. They are there for us in good times and bad and provide a level of comfort and security that we need to make sure that our family has a strong support network. We are also fortunate to have this network span two countries. As a family from the US and from Costa Rica, the people closest to use help to enrich the family with customs from two distinct cultures. They all make up our ‘village’ when it comes to raising our son Nicholas, who considers all these awesome adults as tios and tias (aunts and uncles) and their kids as cousins.

When asked if we would be willing to adopt a baby racially and culturally diverse from us, the answer was of course yes. But this process forces us not just to say yes, but to analyze why we feel so comfortable saying it. We believe there are two reasons. First, we are already a diverse family from two different countries, with two different languages, and we celebrate that diversity. We feel fortunate to have traditions and points of view that span two cultures and find them to be an asset for our family. Second, we know when to admit our own ignorance and ask for help. If we don’t know something, we will ask people who do, if possible, get involved with a community that shares our child’s race and background, and also read and educate ourselves. We will never pretend our family’s racial and cultural diversity doesn’t exist simply to make us or someone else comfortable. Our desire to complement and honor our already diverse family is too strong for that.

Andrew was adopted by his father when he was a toddler. He considers himself lucky to have that as part of his life, and perceives it as a gift of love. Laura and Andrew have friends and family who have adoptive children and have witnessed how their experiences are challenging and wonderful at the same time. They recognize how some of the struggles and joys of adoptive parents compare to the ones they face as biological parents of Nicholas, and how many others are intrinsic to adoption. Although they are aware that the process will be more complex than they can imagine, they feel ready to embrace it.

One of our most important family traditions is hosting Thanksgiving every year. Family and friends from the US, Costa Rica, and around the world come to our house to share the day. Usually, we have about 30 people in our home for dinner, and 7 to 10 of them are out of town guests that spend a few days with us. As tiring as it can be (and it is every time), it is something that we treasure and look forward to for months! Additionally, almost every year we spend Christmas and New Year’s in Costa Rica, which gives us the chance to catch up with all our extended family and travel for a couple of days at the beach (before enduring winter back in the US in January). Our favorite places for trips in Costa Rica are on the pacific coast, and include Manuel Antonio National Park and the rainforest at Monteverde.

Our promise to you is honest love. Your baby will receive the kind of pure and truthful love that we all have for each other in our family. Our strengths, our challenges, our successes, and our failures are all celebrated as part of the unique and ever-evolving story that makes us special as a family. Each one of us came to this family in their own way and with their own story. We cherish those ways, and we cherish those stories. Above all, we will honor your choice by caring for this child as best as we can for the rest of our lives and will prioritize happiness throughout his/her life.