We met while going to school and working in New York City. Ned was raised mostly north of the city and has most of his family on the Northeast coast. Kathleen is originally from Texas but decided to move to nyc to be closer to her brothers who lived in the city at the time. We met on Tinder and settled down in NJ, outside of Philadelphia.

We love outdoor activities and live on 6 acres of property that we are slowly turning into a small homestead farm. We have several chickens, a large garden and plans for goats and other animals. We currently are growing hay on the front of our property but hope to turn it into a beautiful wildflower meadow.

Apart from our home we also love to go to the beach on the Jersey Shore. Ned grew up visiting his grandparent's beach house and playing all summer long with his cousins. We got engaged on the beach and have enjoyed many fond memories of summers on the beach.

Ned and his birth mother were both adopted from Gladney. We love that a future child will be able to share this form of lineage with Ned and our family. We have both expressed interest in adoption since the early days of our relationship. Ned was vocally passionate about the topic almost immediately which, he was relieved to find, Kathleen was equally as enthusiastic about. We know there will be unique challenges with raising a child in an open adoption. We're excited to face these challenges with you and are amenable to the amount of contact and openness you'd like to have.

We have such great immediate and extended families who are supportive of us and our adoption journey. All our nieces and nephews are so excited to have a new cousin to play and grow up with. We both feel very fulfilled in our lives but agree that there is something missing. We know that adding a child will be the cherry on top of an otherwise fantastic and fortunate life.

I studied nursing in college and it has been a fulfilling and amazing career. I love being a nurse! I started out working in the emergency room at the beginning of my career so I am a bit of a thrill seeker. However, I decided that to go back to school & help people in a different environment. Now, as a Primary Care Nurse Practitioner I use my skills and knowledge to keep my patients healthy and happy! I am also our clinic's Medical Director and love working hard and coming up with new initiatives in my role.

I enjoy spending my time gardening. I love our house and that I have plenty of space to spend time outside. I am slightly obsessed with gardening and growing fruits and veggies. It's such a cool experience to know that the food I'm eating is something I grew from seed. I create spreadsheets and garden planners on what needs to be done each week and month. Ned helps manage the garden and I couldn't do any of it without him but it's definitely still a work in progress. We grow lots of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, squash, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, herbs, peppers and so much more.

Our chickens are one of my favorite things to take care of/love too! I have always wanted to have chickens...I'm not sure why because I grew up in the city but I finally have chickens! I love collecting eggs every morning and watching them run and wobble their fluffy feathers.

I also love cooking and baking and have a huge collection of cookbooks. My brother is a great bread baker and he has taught me to love making sourdough bread. My dad loves to bake pies so I always try to find new recipes to share with him. On some weekends I also enjoy relaxing and watching Netflix or romcoms on the Hallmark channel. I love to listen to podcasts while cooking, baking, gardening or just driving too. I also like quilting. It is a hobby that my mom and I started together, although she is much better at it than I am! She makes quilts for everyone in our family and raffles one off at the Christmas party every year. I aspire to be as productive as her one day.

I was adopted from Edna Gladney in 1984 in a closed adoption so, technically, I'm from Fort Worth, TX but I was raised in the Northeast between New Jersey and New York. Although my adoption was closed, my parents were always very open about it and after many years of searching, my biological mother reached out to me recently. So while we haven't had a relationship for a very long time, I am in correspondence with my bio-mom on a regular basis. I could go on and on about my adoption and the process. I'm very open about it and always willing to talk about it.

School was always very hard for me and graduating college with a Bachelor's Degree was a huge personal accomplishment. I was diagnosed, very early on, with ADHD and Dyslexia and always had this feeling that I was the 'trouble maker'. While I've never claimed to be a saint, I was a good, enthusiastic kid. I always dreamed of 'growing up' and becoming an adult.

Now that I am a "grown up", I couldn't have ever imagined a better life for myself. I now work for myself doing investments from home. This leaves me to have a very flexible schedule and allows me to focus on my passions and pastimes.

I truly enjoy giving back to others and volunteering provides that outlet for me. I volunteer with the homeless at a men's shelter helping with meals and whatever needs to be done that day.

I'm also a court appointed advocate for an organization called CASA serving adolescents in transitional home and foster care situations. While life is amazing and I feel extremely lucky, I often feel like something is missing and I long for the companionship and responsibility of a child.

Thank you for reviewing a little bit about our life. We hope that this helped you in your journey. We have a very close knit family who are excited to offer support and love to us and a future child. We aspire to raise loved, happy, strong, confident children and provide a good future where they will prosper. We hope that you will be part of that with as much involvement as you are comfortable with. We understand that this journey and decision is not an easy one. We hope that with the love and support between all of us it will create a loving and beneficial environment to grow up in. Please reach out with any questions, we are willing to discuss anything you might want to know.