Karina and Marc
Hello, we are Karina and Marc. We hail from the far ends of the country – Karina was born in Hawaii and Marc in Boston – but we met in the middle in Washington state. We almost never met, because we both almost skipped the party that first brought us together in 2014. We’re glad we went, and we got married five years later at the beach. We both work as nurses, Karina in pediatric primary care with an emphasis on children’s mental health and Marc in the emergency department.
We live in a quiet neighborhood tucked into a larger city, in a house filled with eclectic and nerdy art. Our neighborhood is very walkable, with a park and elementary school across the street. We love living in a multigenerational and multicultural area with a strong sense of community.
We have a dog named Cerberus – Cerbie for short – who loves to walk with us to drop off books at the library. He is a big shy guy but a good neighbor. Music is always playing in our home; Marc and the dog prefer punk rock, and Karina switches the station to indie music. Our family is playful; we play games, we play music, and we play pretend. We hope to share our love of costume parties and having fun with our child. We also love reading and look forward to doing so as a family.
According to Marc, Karina is an incredibly empathetic person who invests her whole heart into everything she does. Her life’s mission is working with children and supporting young minds, helping them become confident and compassionate adults. She shares her love through food, writing messages on packed lunches and sharing lasagna with friends in need of support. Karina loves tending to growing things, from our dog Cerberus to her tomato plants on the balcony.
Karina thinks Marc is the kind of person you want as an emergency contact. He is dependable and caring. Marc is an incredibly energetic introvert. Most of his hobbies are quiet, reading fantasy novels and playing video games. He brings a sense of adventure to otherwise ordinary things. Running errands with Marc can turn into a side quest to find an off the beaten path event. One trip for ice cream ended with a brass band street concert. He zips around the city on his electric motorcycle and brings it home to his garage turned nerdy Bat Cave.
Karina has always wanted to raise a child and guide them with love through life’s joys and challenges. When she met Marc and eventually his (now teenage) daughter Lauren, she knew she wanted to do that with him. . Marc loves being present with kids and sharing in the joys of each developmental stage.
Openness is a broad concept and we have given it careful thought as we chose adoption as our path to parenting. The love Karina feels for Lauren proved to her that genetics doesn’t make a family. We believe that love is additive; the more people a child loves, and is loved by, the more everyone gains. We will center love as our motivation for continued connection, communication, and care with our child’s birth family. We deeply hold the desire to share as much of our child’s life with their whole birth family. We are willing and eager to do all that we can to keep our child connected to their birth family.