Hello/Hola!  We are Greg and Eric, a married couple who lives in the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. We started talking about adopting a child on our THIRD date, and now, 8 years later, we are ready to welcome a child into our home through an open adoption. We each have stable, secure careers that will allow us to be “stay at home” dads for much of the first year of our child’s life, and great flexibility thereafter to work from home to be with our child when they are ill, or for every special event. We also think there is great value in socializing children with a peer group, and are grateful that Washington, DC starts pre-Kindergarten at age four.

Honoring You

Even though we don’t know you or your hopes for your child yet – we want to know you and demonstrate respect for your beliefs in raising a child.  We know that even considering adoption shows your strength, love, and courage. We want to honor your courage by giving your child every opportunity to fulfill his or her dreams. Thank you for taking the time to read about us. We have a lot of love to give to a child and are very much looking forward to being first-time dads.

Our Story

One of the things that first brought us together was that we both work in international development to help poor families to live better lives and better provide for their children’s needs – and both working in the same countries in Latin America! On our first date, we realized that we had been in the same hotels at the same time in Central America -- and still hadn’t met! Although our personalities are quite different, shared core values are the cornerstone of our relationship. We each value kindness, fairness, and giving back to the community, and we quickly bonded over a shared value of service to others and a love for travel. After several years, many vacations with our families, and lots of adventures, we bought a house together in 2011 and got married in 2012.

Eric about Greg

You can’t spell “gregarious” without Greg! I knew when I met Greg that he would push me to live a big, full life. He has boundless energy for activity, whether it’s exploring something new, or spending time with family and friends. He can pack more life into a day than anyone I know. Greg is social, self-confident and treasures his relationships. He is a “connector” with people, prioritizing staying in touch, and bringing people together. He’s also very intelligent and can absorb new information like a sponge. He is famous among our friends for always knowing where the best new restaurant has opened, where the best tailor is in town, the best place to have a picnic. His friends created a website called “Greggle” where anyone could pose such questions and Greg would respond.  In short, Greg is incredibly resourceful and will always have new adventures in store to share with child. Greg values quality time with family and friends, and brings them together literally around the table. While I once considered myself a good cook, Greg has displaced me in the kitchen, which is his domain, and the center of family life. He expresses his love in many ways, but the most tangible is through his incredible cooking. I love watching him thumb through his many cookbooks on Saturday morning, planning new recipes to try over the course of the week and making his shopping list. I can’t wait to watch the weekly meal discussion with our child! With Greg, they will have special memories in the kitchen. I have happily taken-up my new responsibility of cleaning up and washing dishes after each night’s amazing meal. Whereas I used to be fine eating in front of the television, Greg has us sit down at the kitchen table each night to share a meal and stories of our day. This is one of the many ways that he will contribute to building safe, stable and loving space to share our lives together with a child. In many ways, Greg remains a big child himself. He delights in telling corny jokes and puns. He’s a great storyteller and loves dramatically reading books to the children in his life. Being around children, he’s the first to get down on the floor to play games and have fun. For Greg, life is a big stage where anything is possible, and he’s ready to put our child center stage for the adventure.

Greg about Eric

Eric is a solid, steady person who is devoted to his friends and family. Even after 20 years in Washington, he maintains the Midwestern values he grew up with in rural Missouri. His great grandparents emigrated from Germany, and he cherishes memories of his family’s German traditions – his favorites being big, child-centered Christmas and Easter holidays. Our child will definitely learn some German from Eric growing up! He manages government programs that provide assistance to families in Latin America and he cares deeply about making a difference in the world, and that things are done well. He is among the most patient people I know. He is always there for his friends and family and people know that they can call him with a question or problem and that he will listen carefully, empathize, and help solve the problem. He is also a baseball fan and invites friends to join him at a game to catch-up and share quality time together. He loves taking our friend’s children with him to games, as his Grandfather did with him. I can’t wait to see just how enthusiastic he will be taking our own child! I am grateful for all of these attributes as we will co-parent a child.  Eric will crate a safe, trusting space for our child to be able to share any problems or issues and work through them. Eric is a bit of a “homebody”, and he likes to make sure that our house and garden is a place of relaxation and warmth where you can recharge. He will be the first person to notice a beautiful tree, a butterfly, or a flower about to open. He delights in nature and feels a special connection to God in each and every part of creation. Eric will be a great guide to finding wonder in life. I know that he will be a great dad teaching our child about nature, kindness and respect for animals, plants, and people, and that it is ok to be still and quiet at times. Eric will join our child in contemplating the sunlight filtering through the leaves of a tree, or absorbed in a good book. Eric loves being Uncle Eric to our Godchildren and to our friend’s children. When we visit with our friend’s son Wynn, Eric is the only person that Wynn wants to play with. Wherever Wynn’s imagination is taking him in the moment, Eric is right there with him. Eric loves seeing the world through the eyes of a child, and I know he will bring that sense of playfulness and exploration to our child.

What we bring to parenting

Our friends describe us as a couple that complements each other well. Greg is always on the go, cooking amazing meals, seeking out the newest market or museum opening, and ready with a big laugh and an open door for friends. Eric keeps the home fires burning, making sure that our house and garden are a refuge and making sure that we stop to appreciate the quiet moments in life like a flower that just bloomed or a hummingbird at the feeder. Together we balance each other, and we enjoy a stable, fun existence. We will each bring special attributes to raising a child. We are so grateful we found this special balance with one another, and can’t wait to have our next dream come true – co-parenting our child together.

Our home

We live in a historic row house in Washington D.C. that we fill with friends, family, souvenirs from our travels all over the world. Our child will have a beautiful, light-filled, roomy historic house as their big playroom. We have a fenced front porch in the front, where we chat with our neighbors. The fenced back-yard garden is an oasis of Eric’s creation, where we have a birdbath fountain, flowering trees and plants with lots of space for fun and play. The local garden club even asked Eric to join because the backyard was so pretty. We have a large kitchen, which invites sitting and talking with Greg as he cooks an amazing meal. Our child will have their own sun-filled bedroom and have a large space for a playroom which already has some children’s books, games, toys that our parents have saved for us from our own childhoods. We can already imagine our child’s first steps between the dining room and the living room, or in the backyard, where there’s just the right, comfortable space for those those first footsteps.

Our community

We love our neighborhood because it is multicultural (Latino, Caucasian, African-American), tree-filled leafy oasis, close to downtown and our jobs, and tucked into a large park on three sides. We like to walk and ride bikes in the park, look out for birds and deer, and can’t wait to do that with our child! We can walk to the neighborhood main street, which has a farmer’s market and cute shops including a bakery, restaurants, and many Latin American bodegas. It feels like village in the city. Our neighborhood is especially famous for being the best decorated and visited for Halloween. The streets are shut off, and it becomes a huge party for all of the trick-or-treaters. Each year we have over 300 neighborhood kids come by to trick or treat, and love dressing up with all of our neighbors and sitting on our front porches handing out candy to the kids. With all the kids, we’ve used the bits of the languages we know:  Spanish, German, Portuguese, and even some Arabic. We live right next to the National Zoo and its famous panda bears – we can hear the lions roar from our house! – and look forward to taking our child to see the animals and ride the carousel, an annual tradition we’ve shared with our friends’ children every Christmas. We are also one block from the local bilingual (English-Spanish) elementary school, a playground, and a library, which we also look forward to sharing with our child.

Our families

Both of us are very close to our families. They often come to visit and we frequently visit them.  Eric’s parents live on a farm in the mountains of Virgina where they grow organic produce and keep sheep and chickens. They will teach our child a love of the wonders of nature, and living in balance with the Earth. Greg’s parents live in the picturesque small town in Connecticut where Greg grew up, and they inherited Greg’s grandparent’s beach cottage in Cape Cod. This is a center of Greg’s family life – he has been going there every summer since he was born, and it has become a favorite getaway for Greg and Eric. One of the traditions that we most look forward to passing on to our child is regular trips to Cape Cod with the family where we sail, swim, kayak, fish, fly kites, and watch the sunset. Having these experiences together with our child is something we’re especially looking forward to!

Our promise as parents

We both are committed to putting our child’s interests first. We will nurture relationships with family and friends that make our child feel safe, supported, and included. We will share stories of adoption in our own families. We will support our child to follow his or her dreams, and encourage exploration of all of life’s possibilities. We value education, respect, and creativity and we want to inspire a sense of wonder about the world around us in our child.  We especially welcome the new directions our child’s interests will enrich our lives (music, computers, bugs, dogs, dolls, dinosaurs, hockey – we’re open to exploring it all!) Given our careers and interests we will raise our child in a multicultural setting, including bilingual education (teaching them Spanish), and exposure to other countries and cultures. We both have stable careers, and are fortunate to have flexibility to work from home or get home early. We have been able to save money for our child’s needs. We’ve invested in creating a space in our home for a playroom and in-home daycare so that our child will have his or her formative years in a safe, stable, nurturing environment.

Thank you!

While we are tremendously excited to share our lives with a child, we recognize our dream is because of your great sacrifice. To whatever extent you may or may not wish to stay connected with us, please know that we believe in being fully open and honest about our child’s birth history, birth family and honoring special family traditions. Should you honor and entrust us with raising your baby, you will forever hold a special place in our hearts and we will always share our love and gratitude for you with your child.