Our Story
In the midst of the global pandemic last year, like many around the world, we started taking walks around our neighborhood together as a family. One bright, blue-skied day in June (a picture from that day is on this page!), we had a conversation that led to a shift in the entire direction of our lives. We've always wanted to parent multiple children--family is one of the greatest gifts God has created, and we wanted to share that with another little person. Looking back at where we had been, we realized that adoption wasn’t just something we might do someday, but that all the pieces in our lives had led us to this moment: it was time to adopt a child now.
We’ve shared a lot together--we became friends playing Connect Four after church when Peter was 10 and Tori was 11. (Yes, our love for playing board games together began early!) Our families both homeschooled, and both of us have grown up with pastors as parents. We’ve always loved God’s body, the church, and we’ve spent all of the last 11 years of our marriage investing into the church, youth ministry, worship training and discipleship. In 2012, we started trying to conceive, dreaming of having lots of children, just like both of the families we grew up in. Unfortunately, we found out I (Tori) officially had some fertility issues.
At the end of 2015, after years of trying and waiting we found out we were pregnant--our miracle girl Esther Joy joined our family in 2016. Though pregnancy was difficult, and my delivery and recovery were traumatic, every moment was a fulfillment of the dream of parenthood for us. Walking through the challenges and the joys of parenting together deeply strengthened our marriage.
The first year of Esther’s life was beautiful—the changes week to week, and even day to day, in her development and growth enraptured us! Being Esther’s mom and dad has been so fulfilling. One of our favorite things is studying our girl to determine how she learns best, then helping her grow and gain new knowledge by teaching her and giving her new experiences.
Investing in another life every day in our home has been the greatest joy; we were confident we were meant to have another child in our family someday.
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What we didn’t expect in the slightest came on June 17, 2017: Peter received the diagnosis that he had testicular cancer. We dove deep into a rapid and intense treatment. We are forever grateful for the community of family, friends, students, our church, and other local churches in Kalamazoo and around the world that rallied around us in prayer and support. Testicular cancer is one of the few cancers that is currently curable. After 12 weeks of large doses of chemotherapy, and 5 surgeries, Peter was declared cancer-free in October 2017--just 4 months after we found it. While he is now almost 4 years cured and cancer-free, the results of his life-saving treatments have left us unable to conceive.
So on that walk in 2020, we started dreaming about what life could look like with another child in our home through the path of adoption. One of the first things we realized was we didn’t want to bring a second baby into our little house--it wouldn’t be a good fit. So Peter said, “It’s time to move!” And so we did--shortly after he packed up our first box, full of our board games, so we’d be extra motivated to make the move happen! We’ve spent the last year preparing our hearts and home to adopt.
We packed and sold our home that summer, and in the fall we moved into the perfect home with space for a new baby. Through our conversations together, with others, and in prayer, we determined that domestic infant adoption is the clear path God has called us to. We also attended orientations for multiple adoption agencies, and decided that Adoption Associates Inc. is the best fit.
We are thankful you’re here, interested in our story and following the journey as we wait on the Lord and seek for the child that we can’t wait to have join our family.
