Eric and Matthew
Dear Birth Family,
We’re Eric & Matthew. We’ve been together for over ten years and can honestly say that each year has been better than the one before. There are many ways you can describe us – spouses, partners, whatever – but most of all we’re absolutely the best of friends.
Over the last decade we’ve had very interesting lives—lots of ups, and of course some downs. But through it all, the most consistent thing (other than how solid our relationship is) has been our focus on building lives that will allow us to be the kind of fun, active, extremely involved parents we dream of being. It’s taken a lot of effort (and more time than we originally thought) but today we both enjoy creative, supportive careers that pay us well and give us flexible schedules. We’re part of an amazing community of artists, teachers and dear friends who love us and can’t wait to help us become parents. Overall, we’re amazingly blessed, and the only thing that’s missing is our firstchild! (Yep, we hope to have more than one.)
Matthew is a professional classical musician. In addition to his own performance and teaching activities, he runs a non-profit community music center where he conducts four community choirs and directs an annual community musical. Two of the choirs are children’s choirs based at our local elementary school where Matthew is very involved, and where our child would most likely attend school.
Eric sings in both adult choirs, as well as running another local nonprofit with a mission of serving those with cancer and promoting general wellness. He gets to manage most of the staff, write grants, manage the construction of new buildings and gardens, and has no end of variety in his job. Matthew has the longer commute to work – his office is a whole seven minutes away from home, where Eric’s is just five.
We recently moved into a brand new house in a very quiet spot at the end of a long curvy private road (if we get two cars a day up here we complain about the traffic). We have one set of very kind neighbors and our house is surrounded on the other three sides by pristine rain forest filled with quail, deer, jays, eagles, and rabbits who visit us every day. We chose the house not only because it’s beautiful with spectacular salt-water views, but because it has room for a growing family and so many wonderful play areas.
Our old house (which is now Matthew’s office) is just a ½ mile hike through the forest (or a three mile drive). It sits on a saltwater estuary with lots more wildlife (seals, otters, salmon, ducks, herons, cormorants and even the occasional orca) and Eric takes our sweet old dog Tucker swimming there every day. Both are magical spots we see as giant natural classrooms for our children.
We’re also avid organic gardeners and spend a big chunk of our free time growing and putting up food (last summer this included 25 quarts of pickles, tons of tomato sauce, gobs of eggplant parmesan, and blackberry jam). Which supports our other favorite activity, cooking!
We’ve known for over 9 years that open adoption was the right way for us to become parents. We of course love that our children will always know exactly where they came from. But perhaps more importantly, they’ll always know that their birthparents loved them so much they chose the option that would allow them to be as careful and deliberate as possible about the family that would raise their son or daughter. How could a child not feel cherished knowing that?
We hope you can sense how much we love each other and the life we’ve built together. We play outdoors everyday. We sing every day. We laugh every day. And now, we hope to share this wonderful life and community with children. We wish you all the best with the huge decision you have before you. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this letter, and for considering us.
Eric & Matthew
For this family's complete adoptive parent profile, please contact Open Adoption and Family Services.