After a six-year long hiatus, we rekindled our love in a hopeless place... during the COVID-19 pandemic. As we remained Facebook friends, we reconnected via DMs in July 2020... and we picked up in a different place than where we left off... a wonderful place. The initial short and sweet exchanges filled with how we were each navigating the pandemic, soon turned into long, scrolling messages about how we were navigating life in general. By September, we were looking forward to reconnecting in-person. Absence definitely made our hearts grow fonder. Originally planning to meet for tea and hot chocolate, we managed to create the best “first'' date ever! Danny traveled from Charlottesville to northern Virginia for our first rendezvous. Somehow we wound up spending the entire day together: hiking a nearby trail, picnicking at Gravelly Point Park and watching the planes land, being kids again at a autumn festival (traversing a corn maze, drinking hot chocolate, feeding the llamas, and enjoying a cozy hayride), and finally enjoying ice cream cones for dessert. While unspoken at the time, neither one of us wanted the day to end... and it hasn’t because we’ve been together ever since. Absence truly made our hearts grow fonder!

Unlike most couples, our path to adoption is a bit different. From the very first time we started talking about family formation and our goals, adoption was a part of our plan. No resistance, no difficult conversations, just an easiness about parenthood and how we would be as parents. We knew we wanted to be parents and grow a family together and because Danny’s dad was adopted and one of our mutual close friends was also adopted, adopting a child (or children) just seemed natural for us. En route to starting a family, though, we experienced some challenges conceiving. After undergoing one unsuccessful IVF cycle (and the associated disappointment, sadness, and grief), we consciously made the decision to fast-track our timeline and shift our focus into becoming parents and growing our family through the adoption process. Biological connection to our children was important to us at the outset and becoming parents is even MORE important to us. We chose adoption AND adoption chose us.