Bellefaire JCB - Autism, Adoption, Foster Care, Wellness, Behavioral Healthcare | Cleveland, Ohio - Infant Waiting Adoptive Families

Infant Waiting Adoptive Families - Brian & Renee

Dear Birthparents: Hello! Welcome to our lives. We are Brian, Renee, and Connor. Thank you so much for taking the time to look closer at our family. Choosing adoption for your child must be one of the most challenging decisions you are making. We admire you for your courage and your deep caring for your child in making adoption your choice. We hope that this detailed profile will give you a good idea what life in our family is like.

We live on the west side of the Cleveland on a quiet street. In the summer, there are always children riding bikes or just playing outside up and down the street. Brian and Renee both work full time. Brian is a computer programmer and Renee works in human resources. Connor goes to a private Montessori school. We have a dog, Cody, and three cats: Raz, Bailey and Katie. As a family, we like to go to the Metroparks, or to any one of the nature preserves for a walk in the woods. In the summer, we also like to go to the zoo, the beach and to the pool. We go to the zoo about four times a summer and Connor has a jar full of sea shells he has plucked from the sands of Lake Erie. In the winter, we like to go to Great Lakes Science Center, or to one of the nature centers. Brian likes to cook, play guitar, and build miniature robots. Renee likes to play tennis, paint, plant flowers, and has recently started knitting.

How we met

We met in college and, while it was certainly not love at first sight, we were instantly best friends. Renee was in an art class and had a project to make a house out of cardboard. All of the class had to make these houses and stay in them overnight. Brian was a friend of one of Renee’s classmates. When we met, we spent the entire evening talking and 20 years later, we are still each other’s best friend. After college we found jobs, bought a house and got married. We have been happily married seven years now. We had a small wedding with all of our close family and friends there.

Our family

Our families are very important to us. Most of Brian’s family lives within a 30-minute drive from us. We see Brian’s family much more often since they are in town. We get together on weekends, birthdays, cookouts, and just to hang out together. Renee’s mother lives in Virginia. While we do not see Renee’s mom as often as Brian’s family, she does come to visit on Connor’s birthday, Thanksgiving or Christmas, and other times during the year. It is also fun to take a mini vacation to Virginia for visits. Renee has a grandmother and many aunts, uncles and cousins who we visit often, near Dayton. Both our families are very close to Connor and can’t wait for us to have an addition to our family.

Our traditions

We have many family traditions, some that involve the whole family and some that involve just our immediate family. Every Mother’s Day, Renee, Brian and Connor have brunch at the zoo and then, weather permitting, spend the rest of the day at the zoo. Most of the other holidays in the summer involve cookouts with our whole family. We put up tents in the yard and Connor and his cousins all play in the backyard on the swing set, in the sand box or ride bikes.

Halloween is the first big fall holiday for us. We go all out. Renee and Connor start looking at costumes online in August. Renee and Connor decorate the house on the inside with lights and window stickers. Brian decorates outside with lights, statues in the yard, and even an inflatable Frankenstein that Connor named “Franklin”. We go to a family farm to get our pumpkins, gourds and corn stalks for the house. Brian and Connor pick out designs to carve in the pumpkins. The weekend before Halloween, we carve the pumpkins and roast the pumpkin seeds for snacking on later. Connor has one of his friends come over and they go out trick-or-treating.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are always spent with family. We alternate holidays between Renee’s and Brian’s family, due to travel. Christmas is a big deal in our house. The whole house is again decorated inside and out. We get a live tree for the living room and we have an artificial tree for the play room. There are Christmas decorations in every room. Connor has a countdown calendar in which Santa leaves a little something in each door. Since Connor is young, we decided that we will always be home on Christmas morning, regardless of which family we are spending the holiday with.

Adoption for us

We have always wanted children. After two years of hoping and waiting, we were gifted with the birth of our son, Connor. He is a wonderful part of our family. He is a bright little guy with a great sense of humor. Connor is almost always smiling and making jokes. He loves playing the piano, doing art projects, playing with Legos and dinosaurs. When summer arrives, he loves to spend most of his day outside either playing or exploring. We live in an older neighborhood and the tall trees and stream provide lots of entertainment.

Connor is the one who suggested adoption to us. He asked the question that all children ask at some point, “Mama, when am I going to get a new baby brother or sister?” We had already been told that we would not be able to have more children. When we told Connor that he would most likely be an only child, he asked, “Why don’t you adopt?” Renee asked him if he knew what adoption meant. He gave the most beautiful response. His definition was, “adopt is when a mommy and daddy give their baby to a new mommy and daddy to love and take care of them.” We could not believe that he had the smallest idea what adoption was. It turned out that his class had read a book about different kinds of families. He is very excited and can’t wait to have a new baby brother or sister.

After much soul-searching and talking, we came to realize that it did not matter if our children were biologically ours or not. We had always wanted more than one child. Our neighbors had just recently adopted a little boy from overseas so we asked them a lot of questions. They were thrilled that we wanted to adopt. They were a great source of information when we first got started.

When our new baby arrives, Renee is going to take at least three months off of work to spend time with the new baby. Brian will also be taking some time off so he can bond with the new baby. Renee plans on returning to work at which time we will find private home child care so that our child gets more individual attention. Both Renee and Brian have flexible work schedules to minimize the amount of time Connor and the new baby are in childcare. We plan on sending our new child to the same Montessori school that Connor goes to now.

We understand that through adoption, we are combining two families with different backgrounds and different cultures. We want you to know that we will do everything we can to help our child know and understand where he or she came from. We look forward to having another child to love, teach and nurture into a wonderful caring, kind and respectful adult. We are open to meeting with you before the birth of the baby and exchanging pictures and letters through Bellefaire. We are new to adoption so we are sort of feeling our way around as well. Because of that, we would consider discussing further openness at a level that everyone would be comfortable with.