Andrea and Max

Hi, we are Andrea and Max!

We live in Seattle with our cat, Oliver, and are so excited to be parents someday. We consider ourselves to be open and loving people, who are curious and always looking for joy. We hope through open adoption that our child will be able to maintain their relationship with their birth parents. We want to foster our own trusting and caring relationship with our child’s birth parents so that we can all provide support for our child to explore and understand their feelings, particularly around adoption.

We both grew up near Minneapolis, Minnesota. We met in high school, became fast friends, and started dating right before college and have been together ever since – almost 20 years! Our relationship has been a source of great strength and has allowed us to pursue our dreams individually and together. After dating long-distance for four years, we moved back to Minnesota, got master’s degrees, started working, and got married in 2011. We made our big move to Seattle in 2015 where we now have our forever home. We love both our community and the easy access to some of the most beautiful places in the world.

Andrea works in a senior leadership role for a Seattle-based tech company, which offers challenges and opportunities to problem solve with folks across the globe every day. Max works as a structural engineer and has the joy of seeing his hard work benefit the community with the many buildings he has designed. We live in a lively neighborhood close to the zoo, several parks, and many schools and daycares. We love spending our time together making dinner, playing board games, cuddling with Oliver, and going on walks or out to eat. Andrea loves spending time with and cooking for friends, reading, meditating, and swimming. Max is also a reader, and loves to go skiing, play video games, and build Lego. We enjoy having people at our home – it’s often the hangout spot for our local friend group and we love hosting visits from our out-of-town friends and family.

We envision a family lifestyle that will be centered on the needs of our child, supporting them at each stage of their life. Initially, we plan to both take time off to be with our child full-time at home and hope to have one parent home supporting child care as our child grows. We look forward to family time and dinner together every day, lots of play and learning time, and many family activities like trips to the library or the zoo.

We dream about reading books, cuddling, and laughing together, while watching our child grow. We have a large, supportive group of local friends who have become like an extended family, with kids ranging in age from 6 months to 6 years, who we see every week. We are excited for lots of visits from grandparents, aunts and uncles (Andrea has two sisters, Max has two brothers), cousins, and our child’s birth family!

Openness is important to us for both how our child relates to their own life story and how we maintain a relationship with our child’s birth parents. We want our child to have a continuing and open relationship with their birth parents. Our child’s relationship with their birth parents is important because we believe it offers a better chance for our child to know their family history and to understand their feelings about their adoption. We also hope by supporting their relationship and keeping our own trusting relationship with our child’s birth parents, that our child feels that our love for them is unconditional.

We look forward to expanding our family and welcoming our child’s birth family into our hearts and lives.
Andrea and Max