Before we began dating, the two of us independently came to our own adoption hopes. Robert Tate's aunt was adopted, and the way his grandmother and mother spoke to him about it since his childhood always instilled in them the beauty of adoption and the love families can demonstrate through it. As Robert Tate grew into adulthood and his faith, his interest in adoption and his growing awareness of the great need cemented his desire to adopt in order to start his family. For many years, Sarah has hoped to adopt for three reasons: to provide a loving and supportive home to a child, to speak about the biological parents with dignity and honor, and to model God's love for us through adoption. Sarah's career in family services has only increased her desire to adopt amidst her understanding of the complexities and hardships that exist in the space. When we began dating, we discovered very early on that we both had long separately had a desire to adopt and that we were now united on that front with our relationship. We were immediately on the same page regarding the process and the role it would play in our marriage. We each have always wanted to adopt first before trying for biological children to reinforce the message to our child that they are loved.

"We are so honored that you would consider including us in your story, and we'd be honored to include you in ours."

We met at a college welcome event in the fall of 2013. We got along great but wouldn't start dating each other for another seven years.

After a close friendship freshman year, Rob-ert Tate transferred to a different school but still maintained, funny enough, a friendship with Sarah's father while away, after connecting during Parents Weekends and semester breaks. He made his way back to visit his old school each year to keep up with friends, and we would see each other and talk about college, and then before long we graduated and went to live for a little bit in the Midwest for Sarah and in Eastern Europe for Robert Tate.

When we both had been out of Texas too long and found ourselves missing our friends and families, as well as irreplaceable Texas barbecue and Mexican food, we ended up in the same town attending the same church. For a while, we faithfully hitched rides together to football games and hosted a few parties together at our homes, and before Sarah could fully wake up from a nap, Robert Tate had scheduled their first date over a phone call. We were surprised how quickly we moved from good friends for the better part of a decade to a full-fledged couple, but here we are married to one another and starting our family together.

We got married in the summer of 2021 and have loved the life we've built. Over the next few pages, we hope to share more about ourselves and what matters most to us. We are so honored that you would consider including us in your story, and we'd be honored to include you in ours.

You may have noticed in our story, but we love food. One of the first parties we hosted together (right before we started dating) was a big Pie Party for all of our friends. Everyone brought their own homemade pie, and it was a hit! We do this almost every year now and it's one of our favorite traditions. We love to cook together, and we're pretty committed to a good pizza.

We also love being outside and in nature! Any time we get to be out in the woods hiking, running, picnicking, or walking, is time well spent. Robert Tate grew up in a small town in the country, and Sarah grew up going to her grandparents' house in the woods. Robert Tate's birthday is also on Earth Day, so I think he was destined to love trees & the outdoors. We love dogs, and while we don't have our own yet--we do a lot of dog sitting for friends & family.

We are both Christians and our faith is the most important thing to us. We love being at a church that cares for people well, and we are heavily involved in serving there. In addition to our church, Sarah works for a Children and Family Services nonprofit organization and she loves being able to connect her faith and work to build strong communities. We don't plan to force our faith on our future children, but we hope that they see and know that they are loved by God.

To help us show them that love, we can't wait to see how our friends step in. Our friends are the best of the best and they're so excited to help out with our growing family. We know our community will love our future children well and will support them in their unique gifts and passions.

"We've created our home to be cozy and welcoming to all."

We bought our little home a little over three years ago, and we love having our friends and family over for dinner and quality time together. There's a park with a playground on our street, and there are several families around us. We love walking down the hill to the ponds nearby, and we can't wait to take our family to feed the ducks together.

We have 4 bedrooms, and we're currently working on converting one of them (Robert Tate's office) into the future nursery. Right now, Robert Tate is working on building bookshelves, a crib, some cabinets, and much more home furniture in his woodshop. Pretty soon, we'll have the nursery fully outfitted and ready for a child to move right in!

Sarah here! I'm going to share a few of my favorite things about Robert Tate.

First of all, Robert Tate is a faithful friend. He is so committed to the people he loves. In good times and hard times, he is with you with a warm smile, a patient listening ear, words of encouragement, and a good joke. He loves to connect with people. He's also just a big goober-you can usually find him dancing with our friends' kids, doodling something funny, or embarrassing me in the grocery store.

Robert Tate is also one of the most bril-liant, thoughtful, and curious people that I know. He's a lifelong student and learner, and you can often find him reading one of the books on his bookshelf or reading a million articles about some random thing he heard about somewhere. A few days (or hours) later, he's an expert on the subject. It's one of my favorite things about him. He loves to learn, and he takes the time to enjoy things. There are so many hard things in the world, and he doesn't ignore that, but he also pauses to celebrate the beauty around him. I can't wait to watch him teach our kids and foster that same curiosity and love for learning in our home.

Robert Tate is a college professor, and it's so fun to watch him connect his passion for learning and his commitment to people to his job. He truly cares about his students and encourages them to engage with the world around them!

This is Robert Tate and I don't know that I can fully describe everything great about Sarah.

Sarah, as long as I have known her, has spent all of her time and energy caring for everyone around her. At every event we have, you can find Sarah running around making sure people have their drinks or met this friend we think they'd love, instead of enjoying the party as a guest. One of the things that brought the two of us together after college was caring for a mutual friend who was going through a tough time. Watching Sarah fight to take care of the people she loves is the best way to see who she is.

She is the hardest-working person I've met, as well. It's probably a family trait, but Sarah can't help but make sure that her time is spent not just working hard, but displaying her values in the work that she does. Whether that's putting in time for her career where she prioritizes efficiency so that her organization can best take care of the vulnerable families across Texas (and six nations), or cross-stitch-ing while we watch a movie so she can send embroidered gifts to our friends who are preparing for their children to be born, Sarah can't stand sitting around doing nothing if she can be productive for the sake of taking care of people. Even the goods she bakes are immediately put into baggies for all of her friends to take home--though they often take them right out and eat them before they can get to their cars.

With everything in the world that causes stress and fatigue, Sarah is a constant comfort to me and everyone else in our lives. Her passion and her drive push her toward success, and the only success she seems to care about is being a good steward of what she's been given so that she can best serve others. In fact, she works so hard for everyone else she usually can't help but fall right asleep at 9 PM!

Our community is really important to us--we're so grateful for these friends & family. We know that our future children will be loved deeply by these people, and they have already been so supportive of us through this process.

We've experienced some hard things together and individually, and the support of these people has been so important through it all.

We're lucky to live very close to Sarah's family and we get to see them weekly. Robert Tate's family lives a few states away, but we see them often. We have friends all over the place, but many of them live close and are an important part of our daily lives.

Adoption is a hard thing. There's loss and grief and weighty decisions. Both of us have family members and friends who have been adopted, and it's a complex and sometimes challenging thing. Here are a few of the things we are committed to throughout this process:

1. We will respect you and your story.
2. We will speak with you & about you with honor & care.
3. We will provide a safe and loving home.
4. We will support the unique talents, personality, and identity of each child in our home.
5. We will provide opportunities for them to learn, grow, and flourish.
6. We will provide a community of people who encourage them and support their growth.
7. We will continue to strengthen our marriage and commit to one another in hard times & good times. We want our children to grow up seeing an imperfect but loving & faithful marriage.

We hope you learned more about us through this book!

We know this is an incredibly difficult decision and there's so much weighing on you right now. We hope that you feel supported and cared for through it all.

We'd love to answer any of your questions or have the opportunity to meet.

Robert Tate & Sarah