Drew and Tom

Hello and thanks for reading our introduction letter!

We are Drew and Tom and we live about 25 miles northwest of Portland, Oregon in Columbia County. Drew is a program manager for a nonprofit and works from home, and Tom is an elementary school teacher at a public school in Portland.

We both grew up in coastal towns in Massachusetts and went to college in Maine, but we met here in Oregon about 10 years ago. We enjoy time at home: gardening, cooking good meals, listening to records, playing board and card games and reading by our woodstove. We love hosting friends and family, seeing live music, seeing cool art, and traveling to new places near and far. We met in Portland in 2013, got married in 2017 and then moved out to a house on an acre of land at the end of a quiet road.

Drew is the social glue in several of our friend and family circles. He keeps in touch with many people and is always planning the next get together. He likes to collect stories from daily life or from friends and reshare them. He loves an afternoon coffee with company. He is skeptical of astrology but is a definite Virgo! He likes learning how things work. He likes practical skills, like woodworking, and has a small shop on our property. He loves to go to thrift stores and second hand shops and look for good deals. He worked in restaurants for many years and loves to cook for others. He will be the kind of dad that gets everyone to rake leaves and then makes a great soup for dinner.

Tom is passionate about his work and hobbies. He’s been an elementary school teacher for over a decade and cares deeply about his students. He’s taught 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades and is always thinking up fun and creative projects for his classroom. His students love being in his class and all our friends wish their kids could have him as a teacher. He’s an avid bird watcher, beekeeper, kayaker and reader. He spends time outside with his binoculars and camera every single day, and loves to spend weekends and school breaks bird watching and camping around the state. He started keeping bees a few years ago and gives jars of honey away near constantly. He loves picking up new hobbies, especially if they involve learning about science, nature or animals, and can take place outside.

We’ve both always wanted to be parents and we began the open adoption process in 2022. We feel strongly that open adoption is what is best for children in adoptive situations and look forward to growing our family to include not only a child, but a birth family as well. We want our child to know their full story and feel empowered by the fact that they will have more adults in their life who love and support them. We want our child to have the opportunity to know about their birth family’s background, family culture and health history. We will always hold our child’s birth family in the highest place of honor. We look forward to continuing old traditions and making new ones, and facilitating ongoing relationships that center on the child. We are always excited for a road trip and can imagine traveling anywhere in the Northwest or beyond to make visits happen.

We are both close with our parents and siblings, and even though we live far apart from many of them, we value quality time with family and make it a priority. We have a few close friends here in the Northwest who have become our family over the years. This entire extended network is really excited for us to become dads and they all want to be part of supporting the most wonderful life for a child that joins our family.