Thank you for taking the time to read our letter. We are so excited about the opportunity to grow our family and have been talking about adopting a child for years! We are open to adopting a child of any race, ethnicity, or gender. Adoption is a journey, and we would be honored to take this journey with you. We hope that this letter will help paint a picture of who we are as a couple as we open our home and lives to your child.
Our love story began over ten years ago in Boston where we were both living while attending graduate school. As soon as we met, we quickly discovered that we both shared a deep love of travel, music, and hiking, and found that we also shared a strong connection to our families. We tied the knot in 2016 and have had many wonderful adventures over the last decade.
Emily grew up in a small town in Ohio with her parents, older sister, and younger brother. Emily and her siblings are all adopted, and this has been an important piece of their identity. Having lived this experience, Emily feels ready to help our future adopted children navigate this world. Her large Midwestern family all live in close proximity and often gather for big holidays as well as informal Sunday dinners. We are especially close with Emily’s niece and nephew; in fact, Emily is known exclusively as “Auntie” to them. Emily loves gardening, the Ohio State Buckeyes, cooking, playing soccer, and is a voracious reader who often has 3-4 books going at the same time. Her favorite hobby is traveling! She has been to nearly 30 countries including studying French and photography abroad in Paris during college and living in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania after graduate school where she worked with local female entrepreneurs. These days, Emily shares her love of travel as the sales manager of a small travel company.
Kelly is from southern New Jersey and still visits her parents and older sister often. She is an avid Philadelphia Phillies fan, a runner who is often training for her next race, and an engineer who codes online games for fun. She is also a board game connoisseur and has amassed quite the collection of games over the years. Hiking is a passion of Kelly’s, and she often goes on solo backpacking journeys. Music plays an important part in her life, and she is an amateur musician who plays guitar and bass. Kelly has played in several bands over the years and once recorded an album in Boston with her indie rock band Happy Little Clouds. Both Emily and Kelly love going to concerts and enjoy all genres of music. Currently, Kelly works for a tech company, designing apps to improve the job-hunting process for restaurant workers. The Methodist faith Kelly grew up with is important to her, and she and Emily now attend a progressive congregation with a focus on social justice.
We now live in Pittsburgh with our cat, Kyle, and two mischievous dogs, Bruce and Sofia. We originally chose Pittsburgh for its proximity to our families, but have stayed for its industrial history, Midwestern feel, and incredible city parks. Pittsburgh is our new forever home! We bought a quirky old Victorian home in Wilkinsburg and are slowly restoring it back to its original state. There is a very strong sense of community in Wilkinsburg and in nearby Regent Square, which is what drew us to this area. Without walking more than ten minutes, we can experience ukulele night at the coffee shop across the street, attend a block party with our neighbors, or take a nature walk in Frick Park. If it’s too rainy for these adventures, we can always curl up near the fireplace with one of the many books or board games stocking our shelves.
We’re close with our neighbors and are lucky to have a tight-knit group of friends who are excited to become honorary aunties and uncles. We enjoy attending Pittsburgh’s many festivals or playing in our weekly bocce league, but we’re equally happy to have friends over for cookouts or game nights. Emily in particular enjoys decking the house out for holidays and is slowly building up her decoration collection one Halloween ghost and string of Christmas lights at a time.
Travel has been a constant companion in our lives, and we have been lucky to explore the world together. Some of our favorite experiences include sledding down massive sand dunes in Namibia, trekking through the Italian Dolomites, driving across the United States, and touching a part of the Berlin Wall. We are no less adventurous during family vacations: during our last family trip to the Outer Banks, we organized a massive hide-and-seek game and rigged up an outdoor screen to watch classic movies with the ocean waves as a backdrop. We camp and hike frequently — first in the White Mountains north of Boston and now in the Laurel Highlands outside Pittsburgh.
We aspire to be hands-on parents and look forward to the day when Emily can coach our child’s soccer team or Kelly can take them to music classes. Both of us learned from our parents to let children follow their own interests, but to be there to guide them and provide opportunities. We’ve both daydreamed about the simple joys of taking our toddler to Frick Park and letting them explore nature at their own pace. Our adopted child will be surrounded by love, community, and family.
Thank you for taking the time to read our letter. If you would like to know more about us, please feel free to reach out to us at emilyandkellyadopt@gmail.com or call or text the Children’s Home at (412) 736-2908.