Hi, we’re Phil and Ashley. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about us and our desire to adopt. Here is our story….

In the Beginning

We met at the office when Ashley interviewed Phil for his job! We were friends for several years and then began working on projects together. It didn’t take long after that for us to realize we thought a great deal of each other. It only took one date for us to know we were in it for the long haul.

It was Christmas morning and we had the morning to ourselves. Phil’s daughter, Jessica, was with her mother and we weren’t scheduled to be with family until later in the afternoon. We got up and went to the gym to work off some holiday cheer. When we got home, Phil was preparing breakfast as usual since he is the cook in the family. Ashley caught Phil doing some suspicious things yet had no clue what he was up to. When Ashley got out of the shower, Phil motioned to the mantel where our stockings were hanging and told Ashley Santa had left something special. Nothing like a little shock & awe on Christmas morning! Phil prepared a beautiful card asking Ashley to be his wife. What was also wonderful is the fact that we were with the family later in the day and could share our good news with them in person.

Our Wedding

Ahhh…the Seaside Ceremony and Celebration is what we called the event. We had spent a great deal of time together at the beach and wanted to share that experience with our families and knew that a beach wedding is what would bring them all together. We included only our immediate families and that was still 30 or so people. We all converged at the beach for a week-long vacation together. The idea was to build enough flexibility into the event that we could do it any day of the week. Ashley’s brother performed the ceremony, Phil’s brother was our photographer, Ashley’s mother and sister helped decorate, Phil cooked all of the food, and Ashley baked the wedding cake. It was truly an amazing day! Taking two weeks at the beach meant we didn’t have much time to take a honeymoon that month. So, Ashley’s brother and his wife (Trex & Cynthia ) invited us to join them the following April in the Costa del Sol (Sunny Coast) in Southern Spain. What an amazing trip! We took every excursion offered so we got to see Seville, Grenada, Mijas, the Rock of Gibraltar, Ronda and so many beautiful sites in-between. The resort we stayed in was exquisite and learning to speak a little bit of Spanish was a great deal of fun! It was a beautiful and romantic week neither of us will ever forget.

About Us

Ashley was born in North Carolina. She enjoys her job with a healthcare company. Ashley believes that it is extremely important to spend those first few months bonding with one’s baby and plans to take quite a bit of time doing so before going back to work. Away from work, Ashley enjoys yoga, weight training, hiking, scrapbooking, reading, Broadway musicals, and photography.

Phil comes from a family created through adoption. Phil and his brother were both adopted. Phil also has a younger sister. All are still very close even though we live in separate states now with our own families. We love the time we spend together during the holidays. Phil is a software design analyst which he enjoys very much. Phil gets to work from home which offers enormous flexibility to manage time with the family and his daughter. Phil enjoys mountain biking, hiking, weight training, cooking, fishing, and reading.

Our Home

We live in a townhouse nestled in a suburban neighborhood. We have a wonderful park nearby with hiking trails, bike paths, playgrounds, and lakes for swimming and fishing. We also have tennis courts and a swimming pool with our own neighborhood swim team. The elementary and middle schools are within walking distance and we have shopping and emergency services close by. The neighborhood is full of kids big and small. We see them swimming, playing on the playground, riding their bikes or, for those not yet big enough to ride a bike, riding in their strollers. Phil is an avid biker and has been eyeing those bike seats for babies so our baby can enjoy the ride as well. Ashley’s been eying the walking-strollers so she can show our baby the trails!

Our Family

We have a large, incredibly close-knit family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who love and support us and are opening their hearts to the idea of another addition to our family. Our baby will have a compassionate, loving, and patient big sister in Jessica. We are loving and nurturing parents who believe that reasoning with the child helps them grow and learn to manage their own emotions and feelings. If you show your children respect, they will learn to respect themselves and other people and this, in turn, becomes its own avenue for growth. We are in agreement on all our views on child rearing so far and for the items we haven’t discussed we are committed to have open, thoughtful discussions about what is best for our child as he or she continues to grow. We can offer compassion, discipline with positive reinforcement and unconditional love, open communication, a healthy and balanced life with family and friends, education and opportunity to be the best person he or she can be. We are committed to being Forever Parents and loving and providing for our child for life.

We spend every holiday with family and often days in-between. Every Easter we have an Easter Egg Hunt with hundreds of eggs to find including the Golden Egg filled with cash! Summers are filled with cook-outs and water-skiing and trips to the beach. We have a Summer Birthday Bash to celebrate the summer birthdays and a Fall Birthday Bash to celebrate the fall birthdays. Every Thanksgiving is a family reunion with all the cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents and we do it again at the Christmas Shindig in December.

We rally the troops for soccer games, basketball games, dance recitals, and music recitals. We also rally the troops in support of large national non-profit. Every year we participate in a large fund-raiser. Over the past ten years, we’ve raised thousands of dollars. If there is something not-so-great going on with someone in the family we, as we like to say, circle the wagons to offer love and support and whatever else that person may need. We certainly felt the circled wagons as we struggled with the infertility problems. Those wagons are still circled and this time it’s a circle of celebration as we embark on our journey of adoption. They are all extremely excited to welcome another little person into our Circle of Love.

About Adoption

We tried to create our family naturally and Ashley suffered two miscarriages. She was left with Asherman’s syndrome which is scarring of the uterine wall. We had a wonderful physician who spent a year and a half guiding us through corrective surgeries that unfortunately did not work well enough to allow Ashley to carry a baby. We considered gestational surrogacy and Ashley’s brother’s wife was going to carry the baby for us. While our hearts wanted to take that journey toward becoming parents, the rational side of us knew that the risks were too great to be successful. The end result that we desire is to be parents , whichever path gets us there. Phil and his brother were adopted and Ashley has two adopted siblings so the next logical step – and one that feels quite natural - in our journey toward parenthood is adoption.