Rob & Alex

Dear Expectant Parent:

Our names are Rob and Alex. We are very excited about becoming parents, and are ready to provide a very loving and nurturing home for a child. We have been together for over 15 years and have always dreamed of fatherhood. We are very established in our careers and feel fortunate to be able to focus our attention on building our family. Thanks for considering us!

Summer in the city is always fun with Alex, the hula-hoop-pro

Enjoying a favorite story with our friend’s daughter Piggy back is the best way to get around on a long day of sightseeing

Rob is a teacher and Alex is a medical physicist. When we welcome a daughter or son into our family, we will both be able to take parental leave from our work and spend a lot of time with our child. Rob will also take an additional parenting leave from his teaching position so that our daughter or son will have a full-time stay-at-home parent when they are young.

In our years together, we have been surrounded by many loving, caring, and thoughtful friends with whom we have deep connections. Our families and friends are very excited about us becoming parents. The support is overwhelming! We are fortunate to have many friends with young children --, not only is there a built-in support system, but there are also many playmates for our child. It is exciting to think about the joy and support our child will experience.

As part of the process of preparing for adoption, friends and family wrote letters to our agency. We thought you might enjoy

hearing some of these. Our friend, Sarah, wrote to the adoption agency, “Rob and Alex have a warm and inviting home where they cook, garden, host friends, laugh lots, and work hard. They will be wonderful parents – expressing patience, love, care and a lot of joy. I can picture them dancing with their children in the living room before making homemade pizza. They are very conscientious about commitments and are absolutely reliable. They will absolutely be able to provide security and stability for a child.”

Another of our friends, Renee, wrote, “It is an understatement to say that Rob and Alex will be extremely committed to their child. They are precisely the prospective parents who I imagine your agency is looking for.” We are very grateful to our friends for their commitment to supporting us as dads. Sarah, Renee and other women friends will also be a wonderful resource to turn to for advice in any situation, and as well as being wonderful role models for our child.

Touring Rhode Island with our cousin Cameron

Depending upon your interest and comfort level, we want you to know that we’re very willing to help create an open adoption relationship with you. Whether now or in the years ahead, if you are interested, we’d like you to feel comfortable being a part of your child’s experience growing up. We think that this connection is very important. It can be helpful for a child to know everyone who loves him or her. To encourage these relationships, we are open to visits, video conversations, exchanging letters and photographs, and phone calls. We will always speak positively about you to your child.

Our HomeWe live in a diverse, urban neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts. We moved into our home a bit over three years ago. It was important for us to find a place that was close to our jobs and the attractions of the city, yet we also wanted to feel surrounded by nature. Our home is all that! We are just a short walk from the major landmarks such as Fenway Park (the oldest ballpark in America), the world-famous Museum of Fine Arts, as well as the beautiful chain of parks known as the Emerald Necklace, complete with a river and a few ponds. Some of the highest-ranking colleges and hospitals are just a few miles away.

Our neighbors hail from all around the world. Walking down the street, we easily find many international restaurants, grocery shops, bookstores and other businesses representing all continents. There are many families with children, and many playgrounds where one could hear English, Spanish, Creole and other languages. As an interracial couple, with

cultural heritage both here and abroad, we feel that we fit right in. We are incredibly excited to introduce our child to this community that will welcome her or him with open arms and open hearts.

Whenever family or friends from out of town visit, we love to take them to our favorite neighborhood spots: a beautiful pond where we can take a ride on a row boat, a bakery with the best croissants and cinnamon buns, outdoor festivals with live music and street fair snacks. There are two big events that the neighborhood children enjoy in particular. One is the spring festival with a parade of bands, puppets, face painting and other outdoor fun activities. The other is the fall festival where the children make lanterns and bring them to the pond in the evening. We are looking forward to raising our child in this community with so much to offer.

When we met more than 15 years ago, we immediately recognized how wonderful the other was and we have been inseparable ever since. It all began on a warm spring evening, when a friend introduced us to each other at a roof-deck party. We started our conversation by commenting on the beautiful Boston skyline, but quickly moved on to other topics telling each other about our lives and interests. There were immediate sparks. Both of us knew that there was something very special about the other. Rob saw kindness, humor, intelligence, and compassion in Alex from the start. And Alex was drawn to Rob’s confident, caring, sincere, and outgoing personality. Many years have passed since then, but our relationship is as full of love and fun as ever.

About Us

Together we have had a great time traveling, hanging out with friends and family, and sharing our favorite things with each other. We have also been there for each other when either one of us needed support. Rob kept Alex’s spirits up through his graduate school studies, which culminated in a doctorate in Physics. In his turn, Alex helped supported Rob when he decided to pursue a Master’s degree in Education, while continuing to teach at elementary school. We believe that the strength of our relationship is that it has been built on mutual respect, and genuine caring for the wellbeing of each other. We are very much looking forward to welcoming a child into this environment of love and respect as parents.

Rob grew up in Philadelphia with his parents and an older brother, and a large extended family of cousins, aunts, and uncles. Rob’s family connections kept strong with weekend visits to grandparents’ houses and gatherings to celebrate birthdays, holidays, or “just because” get-together days. Growing up, Rob was a caring and responsible kid, and was often called to look after neighbors’ younger children. He would spend some of his babysitter earnings on comic books, and also save some for a future world adventure. While a high school student, Rob had a chance to use some of those savings to spend a semester in Mexico, learning how to speak Spanish, and how to be an independent young man away from his family. After graduating high school, Rob moved to Boston for college. He was the first in his family to leave the state to pursue an education. This drive to know the world outside of his community led Rob to many adventures, new jobs, and friendships.

Knowing that he had a passion for teaching young people, Rob chose a career in the classroom. He now works at a public elementary school teaching 10 and 11 year-old students. His school district is considered one of the top educational leaders in the state of Massachusetts. And his students come from many cultural, racial and economic backgrounds. Having worked with children from newborn through young adults in his jobs and personal life, Rob has gained a breadth of knowledge of and experience with various developmental stages. He holds an unwavering respect for each individual child’s personal learning style. Rob is also incredibly patient, allowing time for young people to find their own way with some adult support.

As a teacher, Rob places high importance on education and the opportunities that it opens up to an individual. We both will provide our child with the encouragement and support to become a confident person who will pursue her or his dreams.

Rob can make anyone laugh

Touring New Hampshire with our cousins, Cameron and Stacey

Alex grew up in Ukraine. He was the younger of his parents’ two sons, but he often took care of his older brother, who was born with special needs. Growing up, Alex enjoyed being independent and taking on responsibilities, and would try to help his parents in their errands whenever he could. In his spare time, he was a bicycle racer and an avid reader. His favorites were science fiction and adventure books. Always a curious and inventive person, Alex was drawn to study the sciences.

After finishing college with a degree in physics, he moved to Boston to continue his education at a graduate school. Alex now works as radiation physicist at a hospital, where his job is to ensure the quality and safety of radiation therapy for cancer patients. Besides daily work on patient treatments, Alex is also involved in clinical trials and research aimed to improve the results of therapy.

Alex is very happy in this role, as he feels that his work and research are rewarding and important, and that he is making a positive impact on the lives of many people affected by cancer.

Just like Rob, Alex believes that education is essential and opens many great opportunities for a fulfilling life. We both are committed to providing the time and financial resources needed for our child’s education and training. We know that every child is different, with a unique soul and interests, and we will be fully supportive of our child developing her or his individuality and provide them with opportunities to follow their passions.

Both of our families live out of state, but there are many traditions that bring us all together. Rob’s father and step-mother come every year to spend Thanksgiving with us and our friends. Everybody gets a chance to cook their favorite dish: Rob’s father is in charge of the turkey and the greens, Rob makes delicious sweet potato mash and mac-and-cheese, and Alex cooks mushroom soup and baked salmon.

Other friends and relatives come to visit us often. Rob’s cousin (now about to enter college) has stayed with us every summer for the past 10 years. We like taking our guests around and enjoying the great parks, museums and historical sites, and of course the eateries of Boston. We like to visit family and friends whenever we have a chance to travel. Alex’s family lives in Ukraine, including his father and step-mother, two step-brothers, aunts, uncles, and ten cousins with their own families. Even with such great distance, we make it a priority to keep connections strong. Even if we can’t travel to them as often as we wish, with internet and video apps, we have been able to talk to our families and see them face to face more often.

Our InterestsBoth of us enjoy cooking for each other and friends. We look forward to cooking with our child as well – we’ll start with the small things and work our way up, assuming our child enjoys this as well. Alex’s specializes in “uncomplicated” comfort foods: soups, fried potatoes and cauliflower, baked fish, rice and fresh salads. Rob enjoys cooking sophisticated meals from a recipe, involving dozens of ingredients and hours of preparation - and the result is always worth the wait. Rob is also the grill-master, while Alex is great as a sous-chef marinating meats and stuffing kebab skewers.

Thanksgiving: a tradition with family and friends

Riding camels in Egypt, fulfilling a life-long dream to see the Great Pyramids

Visiting family in Ukraine

Visiting ancient Mayan cities in Mexico

We always enjoyed travel, and together we visited more than half of the US states, and a dozen countries in North and South America, Asia, Africa and Europe. We like road trips and nature hikes, and always have a great time visiting friends and making new ones during our trips. Alex is a native Russian speaker, and Rob is fluent in Spanish. Every time we travel, we try to learn a few phrases in the language of the country we are going to. We like trying food from different regions and cultures, and we also enjoy finding out about diverse traditions, music and history.

We both agree that activities and exercise help us stay healthy and full of energy for our busy lives. Alex enjoys swimming and working out at the gym after a day at work. And Rob finds that practicing yoga helps him stay focused and stress-free.

We both enjoy bicycling, and often go for a ride in the park or to run errands around the city. If not walking around the ponds, or biking in the park, we might as well be relaxing at home catching up on movies, reading books, or trying out some new recipes.

It is our hope that we have the chance to enrich our child’s life through our experiences. We look forward to taking our child to quiet national parks and beaches, meeting our many good friends and their children, and learning together about the wonderfully rich traditions of the world, near and far.

If you would like to find out more about us, please contact A Full Circle Adoptions: 1-800-452-3678. We wish you the best in your decision. We can only imagine how difficult this decision of choosing an adoptive family might be. And we hope that you will find us to be a wonderful adoptive family for your child. Sincerely, Rob & Alex