Chad and Jennifer

At a glance

Names: Chad and Jenn
Ages: 36 and 37
Children: Grace (age 4; biological), Alex (age 1; adopted)
Reasons for Adopting: Wanting to complete our family with a third child
Number of Years Married: 7
Ethnicity of Adoptive Parents: Caucasian

About Us

We have been together for 10 years, starting out as friends and building a great foundation for our relationship. Along the way, we felt like we found the other half of our hearts and our friendship blossomed into something more. We got engaged in 2001 and married a year later. We celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary in October 2009 and continue to enjoy the fact that we are not only husband and wife but best friends as well. We love to laugh and have fun. We knew we wanted a family and in 2005 we had our daughter, Grace. In August of 2008 we became parents to our son Alex through adoption. Becoming parents has been an amazing experience for us, opening our hearts to more love and joy than we ever imagined.

Thoughts of Chad as a Dad (written by Jenn)
Chad is not only a dependable and loving husband-he is the kind of dad who climbs up the jungle gym at the park and slides down the “big” slide when Grace is afraid to do it by herself. Chad can wipe away tears of sadness like no one else. His tender, caring nature is apparent when he wraps Alex in a much-needed daddy hug. He is our biggest fan during our successes. His gentle strength, thoughtfulness, and patience are the cornerstones of our family.

Thoughts of Jenn as a Mom (written by Chad)
Jenn is an amazing wife and mother with seemingly infinite love, caring, patience and creativity. She sparks Grace’s imagination by encouraging her in projects with rainbow-hued paints, clay, glitter and other arts and crafts supplies. Jenn is Alex’s favorite playmate, teaching him how to stack blocks and cheering him on as he learns to walk across the living room. She teaches Grace how to help the family with fun jobs of making family dinners (especially her favorite…spaghetti!) and baking delicious holiday-themed cookies.

Extended Family
One of the main reasons we decided to live in Albuquerque was that most of our relatives live here. We believe family is important and we want our children to grow up close to their Grandparents, Uncle, Aunt, and Cousins. We love our families very much and are very close to them. One of the most unique things about Chad’s family is that they are no strangers to adoption – Chad’s mom was adopted as was Chad’s sister-in-law. We are happy that the next member of our family will grow up knowing that other family members were adopted and that adoption is a wonderful way to add to a family.

What We Like to do as a Family
We have annual passes to the zoo and aquarium and enjoy spending time there as well as riding bikes along the Bosque or hiking in the mountains. We like traveling and experiencing new things. We love visiting Jenn’s sister in Florida and going to Disneyworld as well as taking cruises in the Caribbean with extended family. Holidays and celebrations are very important to us. We decorate the house during the holidays and we have fun family traditions such as green pancakes on St. Patrick’s Day and an extensive Easter Egg Hunt in the backyard (complete with Easter Bunny tracks!) on Easter morning.

We are excited about adding to our family through adoption once more and eagerly await the opportunity to open our home and hearts to a new life. We hope your dream of finding that happy, loving, secure home meets with our dream of having another child to love and nurture.

Family Sketch:

We are Chad and Jenn and we want to thank you for taking the time to read about us. We are excited about completing our family through adoption. Although we do not know what path led you here, we respect you and the adoption plan you are considering and hope that you will find peace in whatever decision you make.

Birthmother/Birthfather Letter:

♥ Hello! ♥

We admire your courage and selflessness in considering an adoption plan and hope that this letter and these pictures will help you see what we already know – that we can provide your child with a loving, secure, and happy home. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to tell you about our family, so here we go!

♥ Hi, I’m Jenn – let me tell you about my husband, Chad. Chad is a dependable husband and father and the cornerstone of strength in our family. He is an engineer and project lead, who balances the math and science part of his brain by performing with local volunteer community theatre organizations. As an Albuquerque native, Chad graduated first in his high school class before going out-of-state for college to get both undergraduate and graduate degrees in chemical engineering. He then returned to Albuquerque to be near his family, where he found a job and where we eventually met.


♥ Hi, I’m Chad, and I want to tell you about my wife, Jenn. Jenn is a nurturing wife and mother and the zest and creative spirit in our family. She used to work as a developer of project management tools but is now a very happy stay-at-home mom. Jenn is also an avid reader, gardener, chef, dog trainer and lover of art and culture who enthusiastically decorates the house for every holiday. Born in Baltimore, Jenn moved as a pre-schooler with her parents to Albuquerque, and has lived in New Mexico ever since, including college (where she earned undergraduate degrees in both business and psychology in only four years!). Upon graduation, Jenn was recruited for a job in Albuquerque, and soon after we met through a mutual friend. After being close friends for a year, we found ourselves dating, got engaged one and one-half years later, and got married a little over a year after that.


♥ Grace is our precious daughter, born in April 2005. She has a very inspired imagination, a wonderful laugh and a tremendous curiosity. Though she can be shy at first, she usually warms up to most people after a few minutes, and is then very happy to introduce her new friends to us. Almost without fail, Grace will then proceed to invite everyone to join her in some very imaginative “make-believe” play with her favorite toys, which lately include Thomas the Tank Engine, anything related to dinosaurs or horses, and the Disney Princesses. She loves her family very much, and, as you’ll see from her page near the end of the scrapbook, is clearly excited about being a big sister to another wonderful child.


♥ Alex is our adorable son, adopted as a newborn in August 2008 through AAA. He is the cutest little guy with a big laugh, an infectious grin, and an inexhaustible drive for active play. He loves playing with and learning from his big sister. He enjoys all kinds of outings, especially the zoo, the aquarium and even the grocery store! He is very engaging and tends to charm almost everyone he meets. His favorite times are when the family is all together and we play and laugh. He is going to make a great big brother!

Also very important to our family are our parents, siblings, and extended family – many of whom live in Albuquerque, and most of whom you will learn about in the following pages. And we can’t forget our four-legged friends – two very gentle yet animated Beagles named Bauer and Snapple.

Why do we want to adopt again? The simple answer is we enjoy parenting and love watching a child grow. It is wonderful watching a child explore the world from a completely fresh and new perspective. There is something heartfelt about helping children grow into the amazing adults they were meant to be. We also are very passionate about opening our home and hearts to a new life and completing our loving family with a third child. Finally, we are very strong advocates for adoption, and tremendous believers in AAA and the services they provide, both for birthparents and adoptive families. Our adoption of Alex is a daily blessing to our family, and we are ready and excited to experience a similar kind of miracle with our final family member.

In closing, through an adoption plan, we hope and pray that God will help bring the right people to an important “crossroads” at the right place and time. If you believe that you are being led on a similar important path, we hope you will find out some more about us, and then discuss your thoughts with the wonderful staff from AAA.

Thank you for your time and interest, and may God bless you in this very courageous journey!

Chad, Jenn, Grace and Alex