I recently connected with Adam and Mary, an adventurous, creative couple in North Carolina who are eager to become first-time parents through adoption. When you’re thinking about adoption for your baby, you have the opportunity to connect with families hoping to adopt. This puts you in the driver’s seat and lets you make the choice that feels right in your heart.
You can spend time getting to know prospective adoptive parents before making any decisions. Feel free to ask them anything you’d like, about their lives, what they believe in, and the kind of home and love they’d provide for a child. It’s really about building a genuine connection: discovering who they are as people, what their family life looks like, how they spend their time together, and what they hold most dear. This gives you the chance to find the perfect match for your baby and feel confident and peaceful about your decision.
I asked Adam and Mary some fun questions that you won’t find in their adoption profile, and I learned that they’re a highly educated couple whose home overflows with music, creativity, and their shared passions for cooking from scratch, building Legos, playing sports, visiting museums, gardening, hiking, reading classic novels, and cherishing their big, loud, loving extended family that includes Mary’s sibling with 10 children who all gather for food, games, and joyful conversation.
1. What is the best gift you’ve ever been given?
Mary: The best gift I’ve ever received is the one Adam gives me every Valentine’s Day. He compiles stories from our life together, and he writes them like stories.
He writes from his perspective so that I can see how he sees me. It’s been so eye-opening and healing to see the way he looks at situations, even ones I have been embarrassed by or regretted, and to see the love he has in all its constancy, kindness, and generosity. There’s peace in knowing he always looks for good in me, even if I have trouble seeing it.
Adam: The best gift that I ever received was a homemade gift from Mary. I love all things trivia. I like to learn, and I like a challenge. Mary made a Jeopardy board for my birthday and played game show host. She pulled out all the stops. There were multiple categories, double jeopardy, and I even had to answer in the form of a question. For each piece of trivia I got right, she gave me a gift that was related to the answer. She worked so hard to give me an authentic experience. It was truly amazing!
2. What is your favorite sport to watch or play?
Mary: We are sports fanatics and have always enjoyed watching and playing sports together. Hockey is my latest love in the world of sports.
Adam introduced me to the NHL. I dragged my feet on the way to my first game, but since that day, I haven’t looked back. In fact, when we left the arena after my first game, I went home and re-watched it. I bounce off the walls when hockey season is starting, and I watch every game until my Hurricanes implode in the Stanley Cup Playoffs…until this year, when they’ll win…maybe. :)
Adam: Baseball is just in my bones. It’s my favorite sport. I have watched it and played it before I could even read or write. It is a passion, to say the least. I love the rhythm of the game and the strategy in every part. I can’t name a favorite player. I have too many. But I can say that my favorite team is the New York Mets. Despite their ability to break my heart in new and creative ways almost every year, I always look forward to watching them play.
You can get an even better glimpse into
Adam and Mary’s lives in their video:
3. What from your childhood do you want to make sure your child gets to experience?
Mary: There are a few things from my childhood that I want to ensure our child is able to experience.
Some of those are the opportunity to play and be a sports fan, a challenging learning environment, and, most fundamentally, the opportunity to get to know, love, and experience being loved by the Lord.
Something else that is incredibly important to me is exposure to animals. I have gotten to be around all kinds of animals, all through my life. I once worked at a veterinary hospital and can’t imagine life without animals. There’s nothing better than earning the love of a dog, and I think that is an invaluable life-changing experience that only makes people stronger and more able to thrive in this world.
Adam: I would love for my child to experience sledding down a big snowy hill. It never snowed much when I was a kid, but when it did, we took full advantage of it. I remember going to this big hill at a local park with a borrowed saucer sled. I hopped on the sled and immediately started picking up speed down the hill. But it was so scary, but exhilarating. I took that ride all the way down the hill and into a small lake! Surprisingly, I stayed afloat, paddled out, and stomped back up that hill and slid down again. I couldn’t wait to do it again! I would love for my child to have that experience, too.
4. What Disney character are you most like, and why?
Mary: Of the Disney princesses (and of course, I’m going to pick a princess), I would choose Belle. She’s a little spunky, but sweet. I love that she can’t get enough of books, revisits her favorite stories, and is over-the-moon in the library.
I usually have 5 or 6 books going at any time, and I read whenever I get a chance. In a good week, I’m cruising through a few books a week. I love the way she is dedicated to her father and how she is willing to sacrifice herself for the good of others. I aspire to that and hope that on most days, the same is true of me.
Adam: I had a hard time thinking about which Disney character I’m most like. So, I just spent about 15 minutes on Disney’s website taking an official “What Disney character are you?” quiz, and here is what it says (if it’s from the Disney website, it must be official).
The results are that I’m most like Aladdin. It says, “You’re street-smart with lots of heart. Dare we call you a diamond in the rough?” Sure, why not?
5. As parents, what is something specific you want to teach your child?
Mary: I think the most important thing that I want to teach our child is about their dignity and worth. I think that everything about how we live our lives is wrapped up in how well we learn this lesson in childhood.
When we learn that we have dignity and worth, and that we are loved for who we are, we are able to go into the world to do good and thrive. When we have areas in our lives where we don’t know we have dignity or worth, or where we feel unloved, we struggle. So, it’s cliché, but I can’t think of any more important lesson to impart to our child.
Adam: I want my child to build confidence in their ability to handle what comes up in life. Specifically, I want them to know how to repair things. My parents never really taught me that. But I figured it out when I got older. Knowing how things work and how to fix them is something I wish I had known earlier. It’s so satisfying to fix something that seems like it can’t be fixed without professional help. It also builds confidence and calmness because if something is broken, you know you can probably fix it. I would like my child to have that confidence sooner rather than later.
Would you like to learn more about Adam and Mary?
You can check out their adoptive family profile online. If you’re interested in talking to them as potential adoptive parents to your baby, just text or call Lifetime at 1-800-923-6784, anytime, even right now! We’ll get you connected to talk with Adam and Mary over the phone or through a video call.
Heidi Keefer is a Content Creator for Lifetime Adoption and has over 15 years of experience in the field of adoption. An author of thousands of articles and social media posts over the years, Heidi enjoys finding new ways to educate and captivate Lifetime’s ever-growing list of subscribers.
Heidi has a keen eye for misplaced apostrophes, comma splices, and well-turned sentences, which she has put to good use as a contributor to Lifetime’s award-winning blogs. She has written and published hundreds of adoption articles which explore the various facets of domestic infant adoption today.
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