Austin and Jonathan

Welcome!

We are Jonathan and Austin, a woman whose mother named her after a city she loved. We’ve been together for over 21 years, and we love each other more than words could ever say. We’ve had thousands of adventures together, and welcoming a child into our family would be the greatest and most joyful adventure of our lives.

We live in a family-friendly neighborhood near Portland, Oregon, in a house on a ridge - we can see Mount Hood from our window, and when the sun rises it almost feels like our bedroom is falling into the big, bright sky. We have lots of room for guests, a beautiful but cranky garden (something is always blooming, and something is always in trouble), and six busy, noisy finches who scold us whenever we sleep late.

The small families we come from are loving and strong. Our baby would be the first child of their generation on either side of the family, so they would likely get a lot of love and attention from grandparents when they’re young, and probably a lot of love and unsolicited advice from the same grandparents as a teenager.

We’ve been lucky enough to have two successful careers that allow us to work from home full-time and give lots of time to family - Jonathan is a programmer, and Austin works in finance, where she helps pension funds and non-profit institutions make investments so they can do the most good with the resources they have. We hope that our work will leave the world better than we found it. That is the goal that gets us out of bed every day. Both of us are passionate about everything we do, and our child would be the center of our hearts, our souls and our worlds and would always come first.

We live in what we think may be the most beautiful place on earth, so we escape into the woods and the mountains whenever we can. We also passionately love cooking, grilling, baking and anything else that leads to food. If we are lucky enough to have a child, they will probably see a lot of waterfalls and barbecued ribs as they grow up.

We are very sure that open adoption is the right path for us, and we’re grateful to have found the smart, kind and caring people at OAFS. Our wish for our child is that they feel love from everyone in their open adoption. We hope that they will draw an enormous amount of love and strength from a relationship with their birth family and we want to support that however it feels comfortable to them.

We believe that every person is a journey, and that as parents it would be our responsibility to make our child’s journey joyful, safe and full of wonder. We would let our child teach us who they are, and do everything we can to give them the love, care, knowledge and guidance they need to become the unique and incredible person they were meant to be.

Thank you so much for reading our letter!