Hello! We’re David and Elizabeth—best friends who’ve been happily married for 14 years. We’ve always dreamed more than anything of sharing our life and love with a child, and even before we had trouble conceiving we shared a wish to adopt. We both have close friends who were adopted and whose loving, supportive families have always been great models for us.

We come from different backgrounds—David a suburban American childhood and Elizabeth in a US diplomatic family mostly in Europe—but are true friends and partners. We’re great communicators and open with all of our feelings—values we hope to share with our child.

We love to read, write, play and listen to music, watch and talk about movies and plays, and visit museums. Elizabeth also likes painting, sewing, and other crafts, and we love to cook and travel, especially to Europe and around the US.

We both work from home as editors and look forward to being at-home parents (Elizabeth full-time). We both have experience caring for children, especially Elizabeth who has spent much of her life as a nanny, babysitter, and teacher. We also have several close friends whose special-needs children we’ve been involved with.

We live in a planned, close-knit, child-friendly community in Alexandria, Virginia, that has its own cooperative kindergarten, monthly newsletter, and lively neighborhood events, including Christmas and Halloween parties and a big 4th of July picnic. The setting is very natural, with lots of trees and wildlife, but close enough to bike into downtown Washington, DC. Our local public and private schools are highly regarded, and there are playgrounds, swimming pools, tennis courts, horseback riding centers, shops, and libraries all near our house. Elizabeth’s parents and brother all live in the neighborhood and, together with David’s dad and stepmom in Florida, are extremely supportive of our wish to adopt. We own a four-bedroom house on a safe, quiet street with lots of children. Our half-acre property has a fenced backyard that our beloved rescue cat Russell enjoys running around in. There is a vegetable garden, plenty of room for playing, and a large patio for eating out. Our home is filled with books, plants, musical instruments, and guests—we entertain a lot with family, friends, and neighbors.

We think our home will be a supportive, inspiring, interesting place for our child. We have no preconceived ideas about the child we’re hoping to add to our family. Our goal is to develop a loving relationship that allows our child to flourish. We’re fortunate to be able to meet a child’s educational and medical needs, and we think our own lives as curious, well-adjusted, sociable people will create a good environment for a child. More importantly, we believe our own love and our loving family and friends will give the child who joins our family a stable, structured, warm environment.