An amazing moment in our lives was welcoming our beautiful Hispanic-Caucasian daughter through adoption. We were ecstatic when we matched and from the instant we held our daughter as a newborn, our hearts overflowed. We fell instantly, completely in love. Now two, she’s an active and curious child, living a joyful toddler life, and we simply can't imagine a world without her! Our family’s unwavering support made this journey even more special. From the moment we brought her home she was embraced by a loving circle of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who showered her with endless snuggles. She instantly belonged. Elizabeth’s nephew is also adopted, and brings so much light and joy to the family. Being able to talk with her brother about parenting an adopted child has been so meaningful for us.

We absolutely adore our lives as parents! We cherish every opportunity to love, nurture, teach, and play, looking forward to the day she grows into a bright, independent woman. She’s already excited to be a big sister and forge a lifelong friendship with a new sibling. We’re grateful for our open adoption with her birth mother, sharing updates and meeting in person to ensure our daughter always knows her roots. This desire to keep connections strong is something we hope to carry forward with our future child's birth family. Through our prior adoption experiences we know in our hearts this is the right journey for us to take again in hopes of expanding our family.

We didn’t believe in divine intervention before meeting in 2017, but let’s share our story with you and see what you think!  First, to help you understand how our two adventurous spirits came together, we’ll start with our individual stories.  Trisha traveled for her job, which turned into a travel passion - visiting over 40 countries and having fun learning about new cultures. Elizabeth, too, traveled for her job and loved to explore the world - stepping foot on all 7 continents and having fun bike riding through new cities. So come 2017, Trisha and Elizabeth met while both traveling solo for a long-weekend to Tokyo, Japan. We were on the same flight from California, same airport shuttle to the same hotel, took the same city tour on the first day in the city and, crazy enough, were both scheduled on the same flight home just 3 days later! Trisha said "hi" on the bus to Elizabeth and we've been best friends ever since. We still pinch ourselves to this day about how lucky we are to have found each other, first as perfect travel partners, and now as soul mates in love for life. Our experiences keep us seeking new adventures in life, taking advantage of moments of spontaneity and most importantly remind us that life works in crazy ways and you just never know what might be waiting to change your life for the better if you keep looking forwarding, exploring, and always being open to new opportunities.

Trisha about Elizabeth: The first thing that attracted me to Elizabeth was her kind heart.  She wants the best for me and always roots for me. She has strong empathy and is thoughtful in the impact she has on others.  She recognizes that what she wants can align with the needs of others, making sure all are happy. She is the rock in our family, helping our daughter and me in striving to be our best.

Elizabeth is definitely a go-getter.  With her determination - and sometimes stubbornness - she knows what she wants and pulls out all the stops to make her goals happen, as her many accomplishments in life reflect.  Like me, she’s a thinker, looking at situations from many angles before diving in, in hopes of achieving the best outcome.

Elizabeth about Trisha: Trisha is so loving, caring, nurturing and has heightened empathy for everyone around her, all of which have grown stronger now that she is a mom.  Her calming presence balances my need to always go faster, accomplish more, and do more.  She reminds me to take a breath, remember to relax and just enjoy each moment life offers.  We really are the perfect balance for each other.

I love how much Trisha prioritizes family, it's the key to her happiness.  She supports her parents, helps to mentor and guide her nieces and nephews, and is always there as the older sibling to her brother and sister - as a sounding board, or just having fun together as best friends.  She is always looking for ways to make sure everyone is happy and cared for and that they continue to stay close with one another. 

Our immigrant Filipino-American family is one that is grounded in family, education, and love…and typical life involves food! Trisha’s parents, sister’s, and brother’s families live within 2 miles of our home and we love hanging out together at least once a week, if not more! 

Trisha and Elizabeth grew up surrounded by their extended families - celebrating holidays, birthdays, and enjoying time together. Elizabeth’s aunts, uncles and grandparents enjoyed dinner every Sunday night, and today we carry on a similar tradition by getting together with Trisha’s parents and sibling’s families for dinner every Wednesday night.

Trisha loved having her cousins as childhood playmates and they remain close today, getting together often to hang out. Our daughter has a similar experience with her 4 in-town cousins, always having someone to run around with at family gatherings. As our extended families continue to grow, a typical family get-together can easily have 20+ adults and kids! One tradition learned early as a kid is that goodbye hugs are a way of life, and it can take 10 mins to get out the door when leaving a party. 

We are so thankful for our family support system and value our quality time together - catching up on each other’s lives, having fun and just being there for everyone. We look forward to trips each year to visit Elizabeth’s family, enjoying time with her aunts and uncles in Texas, and adventuring out on hikes in the mountains in Colorado with her brother’s family. 

Elizabeth and Trisha have settled into their forever home near where Trisha grew up, less than 2 miles from Trisha’s parents, siblings and nieces and nephews. In a quiet, diverse, safe, and friendly neighborhood, we can take afternoon walks with our daughter without coming across a streetlight, including the bonus of being a 10-min walk from Trisha’s brother’s family, where our daughter loves playing in the backyard with her cousins. 

Our 1-story, 4-bedroom home has enough space to support a family, including an open kitchen and dining room, office space for our work-from-home jobs, and an inviting family room with lots of natural light coming through the skylights.  The backyard is really the star of the show - with a large open green space that our daughter loves to run around and play!  She even helps us pick fruit from our orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, fig, and apple trees!

Our neighborhood has nearby hiking trails, parks, great schools and is surrounded by endless restaurants and shops within 5-10 miles. There’s always something to do - in the summer there’s a weekly farmer’s market, in the fall our city closes a main road for a street fair, and on the 4th of July we can drive up the road to see fireworks from over 20 surrounding towns!  We’re close to the freeway and can easily head towards the mountains, beach, amusement parks and theater district all within an hour to relax and have some fun. 

We are grateful that you are considering adoption for your child. We recognize that this decision isn’t an easy one. It’s probably one of the most difficult things you’ve ever had to decide on in your life. We respect that and we honor this process you are thoughtfully navigating to confirm if adoption is the right choice for you and for your child. We want to be supportive to you in this journey. There will be moments of hope, moments of grief, moments of fear, moments of relief, and hopefully moments of trust. Trust in the process and trust in building the future that you want for your child with Elizabeth and Trisha as your child’s loving parents.

We aim to have your child know who you are and for you to have the opportunity to see your child’s progress along the way. Know that we are open to email, text, photo-sharing, and yearly visits, and we will find the right balance through a collaborative decision made with you so that we all feel comfortable with the open communication plan. We want you to feel confident that the plan is in the best interest for all of us, especially the child. Just as we treasure looking back on our heritage and immigrant stories, it is important that your child knows their origin story as well, and we look forward to sharing it with them from day one. They will know that you chose us to be the parents for your child in order to give them the best for their future. We want for them to be a happy, successful, educated, and loving contributor to this world. We’d be grateful if you give us the opportunity to provide the love, care, education, and family support that your child deserves. Know in your heart that your child’s future will be protected, to the best of our abilities.

From day two of knowing each other, we talked about each wanting kids some day - not knowing when or how, but just knowing that raising a child was something we each looked forward to. For the next several years we explored the fertility journey together, with all the ups and down of the emotional rollercoaster that comes with it. We each tried to get pregnant and we were so excited when one try finally took, however devastated at 8-weeks when there was no heartbeat. This loss led us to a lot of soul searching and eventually excitement over the next chapter in our story, exploring the adoption journey. With Elizabeth’s brother having experienced the adoption of his newborn son, we always knew adoption was a great option for us to pursue.? We were over the moon when we received an adoption match 2-years ago for our newborn daughter. She brought so much joy, happiness and love to us, as well to all of our extended family who embraced her as their own niece, cousin or grandchild. They are all so excited at the prospect of adding another child to the family if we are fortunate enough again to match through the adoption process!

We truly feel that we have so much to give to another child- our love, our commitment, the embrace of our large family - including 4 first cousins within a couple miles from our house, good education, and the opportunity to explore the world through travel while always maintaining stability at home. We want to pass on our values, our love, our hard-work ethics, our sense of adventure, and our overall joy to raise a healthy, happy child in this world.

Thank you for taking the time to read our profile. We are hopeful that in reading our story, you might find the right home for your child.

With warm regards,

Elizabeth & Trisha