We are a proud multicultural family. Our immediate family is white, Black, and Hispanic. Our extended family is white, Black, Caribbean, and South Asian.

We believe it's important for our children to know and love their culture and people who share it. From daycare and schools, to pediatricians and teachers, to holidays, foods, and music, we prioritize our child's birth culture. We feel lucky to live in a community and close to Chicago, where we have many opportunities to access different cultures. We look forward to doing everything we can to make sure your child feels strong ties to their heritage and culture and would be honored to weave in traditions from your family into ours.

Tatum is Afro-Puerto Rican. We celebrate Puerto Rican pride and 3 Kings Day with our larger families - it is important for us that our children don't just know the traditions of their culture and birth family, but have memories celebrating with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins from day one.

Tatum is also Mexican. We celebrate that heritage as well, including making an ofrenda as part of our celebration of Día de los Muertos. We are so excited to provide similar experiences for your child.

We know firsthand how important openness is and how children who are adopted benefit from knowing their birth families and where they come from. Openness is something we hope our future child is able to experience. We hope they can grow up feeling connected to their birth family and always know how much they love them.

We understand from our daughter, Tatum, and nephews and niece, Bobby, Emmy, and Theo, (as well as many of our family friends with connections to adoption), that every open relationship is different. Like any relationship, it changes over time. We respect and appreciate that sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's difficult for birth families to be open and keep in touch. We are grateful for any level of openness and have seen how Tatum, Bobby, Emmy, and Theo have benefitted from it. (They each have very different relationships with varying levels of openness).

While we're hopeful for openness, we are not approaching this adoption with any expectations. We want to hear your thoughts about it, what you're comfortable with, and what you hope for.

However, one thing is certain: even if you are not able to have an open relationship now, we are fully committed to keeping a line of communication open in the event that changes down the road.

We can't wait to ...

Bond as the "baby of the family." Michael is the youngest of two children in his family. He's excited to share that with your child and understand their perspective.

Find out what they're interested in and support them. This fall we're finding a dance class for Tatum, a love and talent she shares with one of her birth siblings. We're excited to find out what activities we'll be looking for when it comes to your child!

Find out what their favorites are on our adventures. What books they pick out at the library, what their favorite animal is at the zoo, what their favorite museum in Chicago is... We can't wait for the your child to join us, and lead us, on family adventures.

Paint a mural in their bedroom. Bobby loves to paint murals but is waiting to paint the kids' bedrooms so that the new baby can weigh in on what he paints!

Plan our first family road trip and trip to Disney. We love to travel, but we're waiting to plan these two trips until your child joins our family because we want to share these memories with them!

Travel the world with your child. Before we became dads, we were privileged to have travelled the world together. We can't wait to continue traveling with the kids when they're older. Michael wants to take them on a safari in South Africa and Bobby wants to return to Tokyo with them.

We live in a community just outside of Chicago, known for its racial and ethnic diversity, higher concentration of LGBTQ+ and adoptive families, safety, and some of the best schools in the state (both in terms of their diversity and academics). We moved here from Chicago after we became parents because we believe this is the best place for a family like ours. We feel so privileged to live here.

We live in a home that's over 130 years old! As a family, we love quiet afternoons on the porch, playing in the backyard, and going all out with decorations for Christmas, Día de los Muertos, and Halloween. We also spend a lot of time as a family at parks and playgrounds (there are 5 within walking distance of our home!).

In the spring through the fall, we walk as a family to daycare nearly every school day. All of the kids' schools will be in walking distance of our home, so we hope to continue this tradition until they get older and too cool for us. Bobby works from home, so is always nearby.

Close to Chicago, we love taking family trips to the lake, zoo, art and history museums, the aquarium, and when our kids are older, live theaters and opera.

Your child will have 3 grandparents, 8 aunts and uncles, and 8 cousins - all within an hour from our home. All of them are excited to meet and love the newest addition to the family. We visit extended family regularly – weekends, birthdays, holidays, summer vacations - and all of the members are welcomed and loved. Your child would have several young cousins to know and grow up with, and several older cousins to look up to. Their aunts and uncles are very child-focused (between them there are three school social workers, a pre-school teacher, and a high school coach!).

We are also thankful that your child would not only have a sister who understands the experience of adoption, but three cousins who joined our family through adoption as well.

Big family gatherings are our favorite tradition, and with both sides of our family not far from our home, it's not uncommon for everyone to get together at once.

The world has changed a lot since we were growing up. We did not always have role models to follow, other LGBTQ+ people who were living the lives of husbands and fathers that we were hoping for.

Because the world has become more accepting of LGBTQ+ people, we have had opportunities that would have seemed unbelievable a generation ago - falling in love openly, getting married, creating a home together, starting a family.

Today, we live in a community where there are many other LGBTQ+ and adoptive families like ours. The life we are living with our daughter today is a dream come true, and we don't take a single day as husbands and fathers for granted.

We promise you that, should you choose us to parent your child, we will share with them every part of the beautiful life we have been blessed with. We will raise them with love and devotion. As our extended family has welcomed our adopted daughter and our adopted niece and nephews with open arms, they will welcome your child into our family.

We cannot imagine what you are going through right now. We can only hope you feel respected, loved, and supported. While we are excited to grow our family through adoption again, we know firsthand the emotional complexity that is involved. We understand that it can be very difficult for families placing children, and that for the children being placed there will be difficult times ahead. We also know that our family is strong, loving, and open in ways that will see your child through those moments with love and open hearts.

In our experience, adoption is not the end of one family and the beginning of another. While we would become your child's fathers, love them unconditionally, and belong to them fully, they will have a birth family who loves them too. It is our belief that keeping a line of communication between our families is the absolute best thing for the child, whether through texts, emails, or visits. We fully respect your decision about how often communication would take place and understand there may be long periods when communication is difficult for you. We will always be available to help foster whatever relationship you want with your child. You will never have to wonder if they are okay or how they're growing. As we do for Tatum, for your child we will send monthly emails with pictures so that you will know how they are doing.

Thank you for taking the time to consider our family for your child. We hope this profile gives you a sense of how much family means to us, and the unconditional love we would share with your child.

From the bottom of our hearts,

Bobby & Michael