After 15 years of wanting to build our family and going through 7 rounds of IVF, miscarriage, and ectopic pregnancy, we adopted our daughter Lily Jade. However, she unexpectedly passed away at 16 months old. Her legacy is how she taught us to be parents, navigate open adoption, laugh at ourselves, and appreciate life for every moment that we share together. We experienced deep grief after her death and that loss will always be a part of our lives. Since her passing, we've gotten the professional, peer, and family support we've needed to feel like we're in a place to put our full attention on building our family.

Not only were we gifted the most amazing daughter, but we also were gifted with a loving extended birth family (birth mom, birth dad, and a half-sibling) who stay in contact with us, even after our daughter passed away.

Open adoption has not only affected us; it's affected our whole family and friends' perception of what's possible for raising a child surrounded with love. We tell people that "adoption = love" and "open adoption = double the love". This belief is trickling through our friends and family, some of whom are now considering adopting because of our paradigm about adoption.

Open adoption is one of the best decisions we've ever made, and we're looking forward to doing it again and having a birth mom or birth family create a win-win situation with us.

We are big believers in living our passion on a daily basis.

When Scott was 5 years old, his dad put a University of Illinois Engineering banner in his room, and the more he asked his dad about engineering, the more he came to love it. Fast-forward 35 years, Scott looks forward to going to work every day at Apple, engineering parts of iPhone and iPad that make a difference for millions of people. He is also passionate about playing saxophone, which he started playing in 4th grade. He won a national competition in high school, was in marching and jazz band, and now uses music as a creative outlet to balance the massive amount of technical work he does in his day job. He started the first Music Club at Apple, is currently in multiple jazz bands, and continues to learn new instruments, such as clarinet and flute.

Since the time Jos was in Girl Scouts, she was taught that girls can do anything. She doesn't believe that's just a motto; it's a lifestyle choice. Because of her passion for girls and women empowerment, Jos started her own virtual business at home which helps women entrepreneurs around the world market their business and build relationships with other women. Jos also recently became a #1 international-best-selling author in an anthology. In her free time, she loves to read and write poetry, change the lyrics to songs, put on fun, empowering events, debate with Scott (LOL), and give back.

What Scott loves about Jos is how empathetic she is and that she always keeps things interesting. Jos is the kind of person who cries at movies, and even while watching 30-second TV commercials. She feels connected to everyone she comes in contact with, physically and virtually and knows what to say to people that connects with their deepest feelings. She also makes it a point to have her relationship with Scott never get stagnant. She is always looking for new events for them to attend, new personal growth courses for them to do together, new restaurants to try, and even new walking routes in the neighborhood.

What Jos loves about Scott is that he's brilliant, a great listener, her biggest fan, a champion of girls' and women empowerment, and an off-the-charts "serial musician." He plays clarinet, flute, sax, and keyboard and is in multiple bands. Jos loves that he doesn't mind being married to a very independent, powerful and influential woman.

We live in a 5-bedroom, single-family home on a cul-de-sac in a beautiful suburban family community in northern California. We live less than a block from the neighborhood elementary school. There's frequently parents walking their kids in strollers, joggers, and kids playing in the community pool just a few doors down.

Our home has a beautiful backyard having a walnut tree, lemon tree, lilacs, roses, and is fenced in with ample room for children to play on the grass. We use also the backyard for Scott's bands to play live music for parties.

Inside our house, the future child will get their own room and has a great view of the majestic walnut tree in the backyard.

We have several parks within walking distance, a dog park, a neighborhood shopping center with a supermarket, pharmacy, several restaurants, and exercise and dance studio just 1 block away. Within 5 minutes' drive, we can get to picnic areas, miles of hiking trails, a YMCA, lots of retail shopping with all the major big-box stores and a large indoor shopping mall.

We have a nearby year-round farmers market, neighborhood events such as July 4 block party, super bowl parties, cookouts. There is also an amazing park with a pond with paddle boats, a kids train, carousel, and outdoor plays. For Halloween, our neighborhood goes all out and even had a trick-or-treat map.

Our neighborhood is very kid-friendly and has the feel of a small tight-knit community while being close to big-city fun.

Our extended family consists of Scott's and Jos' parents, siblings, and nieces/nephews. We also consider the birth family of our deceased adopted daughter Lily as extended family as well.

What also makes our extended family unique is diversity, cultural and religious. Scott's family is Jewish and Hindu. Jos' family is Catholic and Jewish. We are very welcoming of new additions to our family, whatever uniqueness they bring.

Scott has a sister with 2 young children, and his brother-in-law Santosh is from India. Santosh' extended family includes 3 kids that visit frequently. Scott's family likes to have parties, where he provides musical entertainment with friends. Scott's mom traditionally make gourmet meals, desserts, and unites the family around Jewish meals.

Jos has a sister with 1 young son, and we are also close to her 1st cousins in Florida, as well as her 1st cousin in Illinois who has 2 kids. Jos' family traditionally gets the extended family together for birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas and plays games and laughs together. All members of our extended family support our adoption and are praying and cheering us on!

What does adoption mean to us:

Adoption means appreciating the gift that birth parents are giving, and we appreciate You.

So who are we? We met our freshman year of college at the University of Illinois during chicken-finger night in the dorms. Scott surprised Jos by proposing to her at Denny's on their 5-year dating anniversary, and we have now been together for 24 years, married almost 18.

We have a very fun and loving relationship, and we both love kids, because we're both kids at heart :)

Scott loves singing nursery rhymes, playing lullabies on his saxophone, taking children to live concerts (including his own), and traveling the world. Jos is looking forward to infant cuddles, throwing themed birthday parties, playing games, and reading thought-provoking educational children's books.

We're excited about raising a child to be an independent thinker, who lives their passion, has strong values/ethics, appreciates diverse perspectives, is raised with abundant love, and role-models bettering the world.

Although we've had our share of fun times, life has not always been easy for us. We have shed many tears and gone through many challenges that other relationships might not have been able to withstand, and are stronger because of them. Certainly the death of our daughter Lily Jade was our biggest loss.

We have also done a lot of personal development work over the last decade, so we have tools to deal with our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in constructive ways that we're committing to pass down. It's a blessing that our extended family is extremely supportive of open adoption, and will do everything they can to welcome an adopted child into the family with open arms.

We feel like we not only have chosen adoption; adoption has chosen us. We've had fertility issues for over 15 years. After Jos had an ectopic pregnancy, a miscarriage, and 7 failed rounds of IVF, we really felt in our hearts that the universe was pointing us in another direction: being parents via adoption. Our daughter Lily Jade's adoption was one of the best decisions both of us have made in our lives, and we want to do it again.

We're ready to be second-time parents, and want to support you in fulfilling your dreams for the baby and having as open of a relationship as you want. At a minimum, we would be happy to provide annual letters and pictures of the child's development, and we're open to more contact such as e-mails, phone calls, and future visits.

It's important to us that adoption means having a win/win/win relationship: we want it to be a win for you, for our family, and above all else, a win for the child. We're excited to have a conversation with you about what having a "winning" relationship with us would look like.

Love,

Scott & Jos