For us, being parents means guiding a child through life, supporting them through all the ups and downs, and helping them find their own way to live a fully enriched life. As parents, we are committed to being there with them every step of the way. Every day is a day to assure them that they are loved, even if they stray off course. We will always be there to help. We believe that loving a child also means believing in their abilities, encouraging them to follow their dreams, and holding them accountable when necessary.

We are eager to walk alongside them through their big milestone days: first steps, birthdays, Tooth Fairy, Halloween, Christmas, camping, sports games, and all the events a child remembers their whole life. We are especially excited to share the ordinary days: weeknight dinners, working through homework problems, and consoling them through a temper tantrum.

We look forward to watching our child grow into a strong, independent adult who follows their passions. Most of all, we want to build a home that our child chooses to come back to - a place where walking through the door feels like, "Finally, I'm home" - no matter how old they are.

Padua About Ben

Ben is stable, devoted, and incredibly affectionate. He is always present, not just for me but for the people who matter most to us. He genuinely wants what’s best for everyone around him and is willing to work through whatever problems come our way. I admire that he owns his mistakes and apologizes easily. He is also really silly, and he brings a levity to our home that I didn’t know I needed. He’s constantly making up songs, twirling through a room, inventing games, or asking completely off-the-wall questions. We’ve worked through some of the hardest parts of our lives together, and I am immensely grateful to have him by my side.

Ben About Padua

Padua is the most understanding person I’ve ever met. I see it in the way she teaches. When a student makes a mistake, she doesn’t scold them. She asks what happened, what could change, and then they try again. She does the same with me. She would rather understand someone than judge them, and that’s true even of people whose lives look nothing like hers. She says exactly what she means, and when something is hard, she’s willing to stay with the conversation until we find our way through it. She can sit down with someone she’s just met, skip right past the small talk, and ten minutes later she knows what actually matters to them. No matter who she's with, she is warm, open, and fully present.

We value education because of the doors it opens in life. We plan to enroll our child in public school and support them through higher education, including university degrees if that is the path they choose. We want our child to pursue a life guided by their interests and passions, and we see education as an important means of helping them do so.

Ben is curious and wants curiosity to be part of our child’s everyday environment. Ben leads a team of engineers building a spacecraft to land people on the moon. There's always a launch to watch or a new discovery to talk about at dinner. We want our child to learn by doing activities such as making volcanoes, building robots, crafting, and cooking.

Padua started playing the violin when she was four years old and believes that much of her personal growth is tied to her musical education. Neuroscience research has proven that musical training from an early age protects and grows the brain in extraordinary ways. We plan to introduce our child to an instrument so they can develop personal skills like perseverance, patience, humility, resilience, and teamwork.

Most importantly, we want our child to try difficult things and understand that failure is part of learning and success. We want them to feel safe trying, failing, and trying again, knowing that our pride in them is never dependent on achievement.

We love calling Washington State our home. We live in a welcoming residential neighborhood with our elementary school just four blocks away. Every morning, we see families walking and biking to school, and we can’t wait to join them! Our neighborhood has the perfect balance of city conveniences and a small-town feel with forests, trails, and the water just a few minutes' drive away. We love hiking, exploring local beaches, and spending as much time outdoors as we can.

Throughout the year, our community comes together for family-friendly events like the Holiday Market & Tree Lighting and Movies in the Park. There are lots of young families nearby, and we look forward to afternoons at the local playgrounds, community center, and brand-new neighborhood pool as our child grows.

We live in a spacious split-level house on a quarter-acre lot with three bedrooms, a dedicated second level for Padua’s violin studio, and plenty of room for gardens and a backyard playground. The heart of our home is the dining room. It’s where we get together for dinner parties, game nights, holidays, and long conversations. Every other week, Padua's violin students gather in the dining and living room for group class, filling the home with music, games, and laughter. We can already picture our child making friends, riding bikes, playing outside, and growing up surrounded by a warm, supportive community.

We moved to Washington in 2017 to be closer to family. Padua’s entire family including siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and more have always lived in Washington state. Ben’s sister moved here a few years ago to be closer to him. Getting together with family on either side is a regular part of our lives. Whether we’re hosting game nights, tackling a home improvement project, or heading out for an outdoor adventure, there’s always a reason to get together. Ben’s sister and her fiancé are some of our favorite people to hang out with. We love taking weekend trips to their family cabin on the coast and biking around the nearby islands.

The holidays are always full of laughter, delicious food, and a little friendly competition. At Thanksgiving and Christmas, everyone gathers for a big potluck meal followed by White Elephant and our family game, Greedy Girl, where everyone tosses a dollar into the pot and one lucky winner takes it home. Cards are another family tradition. The older generation taught us Canasta, but these days we’re usually playing Crazy Eights, with plenty of house rules to make it our own.

Every Fourth of July, we travel to Texas to visit Ben’s dad, uncle, cousins, nieces, and nephews at the lake for barbecuing, fishing, swimming, and fireworks. Our entire family is cheering us on as we grow our family through adoption and are excited to surround a child with love, encouragement, and a lifetime of family traditions.

We don't know you yet, but we've thought about you a lot. We want you to know that your child will grow up knowing your name and their story, as much of it as you want shared. It is important to us that our child knows where they came from and that they have more people who love them, not fewer. We’d like to know you too - who you are, what you care about, and what you hope for your child.

We can already imagine a typical Saturday morning with our child: pancakes, cartoons, pajamas through the late morning, followed by a farmers market or a walk through the park, chores in the afternoon because they don’t do themselves, and cards after dinner, usually Crazy Eights, which Padua takes far more seriously than the stakes require. Other Saturdays may have big events: a camping trip, a sports game, a recital, a rocket launch, a birthday party. We don't know what their favorite Saturday will look like yet and we're excited to find out.

We met in Houston in 2012, when Padua was in graduate school and Ben was starting his career as an engineer. Those early years were spent getting to know each other, discovering how awesomely different we are, and how well those differences make us as a team. In 2017, we moved to Washington state to be closer to Padua’s family and our beloved mountains and ocean. We married in December 2018.

Our first years in Washington were hard. Padua’s mother was sick for a long time, and we spent four years as her caregivers. We weren’t perfect, and there were things we had to learn about ourselves and each other. It took years of work, but we came through it stronger. We learned to say the hard thing early, ask for help before it’s urgent, and listen instead of taking our frustrations out on each other. We're proudest of our ability to repair - to understand one another, forgive each other, and find a new way forward.

We share that because we don't know what you're going through, and we won't pretend to. But we know what it's like to live through hard times. If you're in one now, we will meet you with compassion, not judgment.

Adoption has been part of the family we imagined building together from the beginning. Neither of us have felt we needed a biological connection to love a child completely. We intentionally waited until we knew each other deeply, weathered difficult seasons together, and built stability in our careers and home. We feel ready to take on the challenges of parenting, and just as ready to delight in all the joy and wonder that comes with it.

Our lives already make room for a child. Ben leads a team of engineers building a spacecraft to land people on the moon and works a regular weekday schedule. Padua teaches and performs violin in the evenings and on weekends. Most hours of the week, one of us is already home. As our family grows, we'll make even more room - fewer students and performances for Padua, tighter hours for Ben. We want to be there for the ordinary moments as a family: weeknight dinners, forgotten homework, the scraped knee that needs a kiss, the story that somehow takes twenty minutes to tell, and the quiet moments when they simply want us nearby.

We also want their story to include you. We’ll send letters and pictures several times a year and on birthdays, whether or not you write back. If you need space or life takes you somewhere unexpected, our door will always stay open. We're open to emails, texts, phone calls, and in-person visits. We're happy to build whatever relationship feels right to you over time.

We will spend the rest of our lives loving your child wholeheartedly, honoring their story, and being there for every chapter.

Sincerely,

Benjamin & Padua