Ashley and Amanda
Hello – We are Ashley (no glasses) and Amanda (glasses). We live just outside of Seattle, Washington with our cocker spaniel, Nellie, and our best cat friend, Roux.
We met in the summer of 2011 and wound up closing down the restaurant on our first date because we talked for so long. We were both at interesting junctures in our lives – Amanda was just getting back into school after heading up several Seattle restaurants as a chef, while Ashley was trying to break into a new industry after college. Neither of us had been in a long-term relationship, and at the time, neither of us were out to any friends and family. Since then, we have both grown a lot and value being in a relationship based on patience, encouragement, and a healthy sense of humor.
Following our marriage in January of 2017, we started focusing more seriously on our future. During our first date, we discussed how both of our dads were adopted and had similar opinions on how closed adoptions can negatively impact families long term. We witnessed the emotions, loss, and questions that our dads, families, and we as individuals experienced and knew it was important to find a different route in our parenting journey. When it came to parenting options for two women, adoption always felt the most consistent with our values. Given our dads’ personal experiences, we understood how important it was for an adoption to be open. We also knew that finding the right agency to work with was essential. In our adoption process, it has always been most important to us that the journey be ethical, supportive, and as transparent as possible for everyone involved.
We believe in a balance between work and play, and part of that balance for us is planning. While adoption has been part of our plan since 2017, we knew we wanted to be at an established place in our careers, have purchased a home, and have planted roots in Washington state prior to starting the process. 5 years later, we couldn’t be more excited to become parents together.
On the fun side of things, we love to be outside, go camping with our dog, hike, watch sports games, and go on road trips. At home, you’ll most often find us reading, catching up on our latest TV show binge, teaching our dog new tricks, or planning our next housing project. Our love of women’s soccer gives us the opportunity to indulge our love of travel, by visiting new cities to watch matches. We also love exploring food and creating new dishes as a family, and we both look forward to introducing our child to the huge world and culture of food.
When we think of ourselves as parents, we feel excited to learn about our child, to discover their dreams and interests, and to allow that to help shape us as parents. We love learning new things and are excited to explore life with our child. For us to be successful, we strongly believe in community to help support this vision, and that this community should include every person in our child’s family constellation. We want our child’s birth parents to be part of this community in whatever way feels most comfortable for them, and we will work to ensure it includes mutual respect, autonomy, and communication.
Thank you for taking the time to learn a little more about us! We hope we get the opportunity to talk with you further and learn more about you.