Choose A Family : Parent Profile
Richard and Patrick
Hello! We’re Patrick and Richard! We are amazed by the adoption process. It’s a real testimony to the power of human love! We are excited to be a part of this and are thrilled you are taking a look at us and our family. Thanks! We think you are a pretty special person for considering adoption and hope you find the right choice for you.
Welcome
Our story
It was a Gray’s Anatomy romance. We are both doctors – go ahead and gag, it makes us sick sometimes too. We met at the hospital in the same training program and we were dating within the first month of beginning residency. We got engaged on the rooftop of the hospital on New Year’s Eve, when we were on call. We had a commitment ceremony in Atlanta with our friends and of course our families. Neither one of us wore a white dress, but we think we looked pretty good in our tuxedoes!
We decided to move into town to the fun young and we think hip part of the city – Midtown, with our active family of two dogs and two cats. The neighborhood has all the cool fun stuff like the best movie theater in Atlanta with all the artsy films. We can walk to many restaurants and the best part is that we are just a few blocks from Piedmont Park. That’s Atlanta’s Central Park! It’s a huge park with everything you can think of in it – botanical gardens, huge community pool with a big slide and fun sprinklers for the kids, jogging paths, tennis courts, soccer field and baseball fields, and a pond you can fish in. It’s Atlanta’s backyard where everyone gets together to play when the weather is good. There are even outdoor movies in the spring where you can watch E.T. or Star Wars with hundreds of people sitting on the big lawn. It is also diverse, with people from all over the country and even the world, with many different backgrounds and ethnicities. You can see why many families flock to Midtown.
Our house is a 1920’s Bungalow and sits on the inside of a huge oval, like an island. All the backyards come together to form one huge backyard where all the kids play. OK, we think we went on too long about our neighborhood, but it’s just so cool! Oh yeah, we are a two miles away from the world’s largest aquarium which has a tunnel that runs beneath the aquarium. You walk under the aquarium and can look up and see all the fish, turtles, and even sharks! We are also two miles away from the zoo, the children’s museum and the natural science center – no city’s complete without their dinosaurs!
Introducing Richard.
I was born in Seattle, Washington, the very city my parents immigrated to and met each other. My father was in the U.S. Coast Guard, so we moved around fairly frequently but eventually ended up in Washington D.C., where my brother and I spent our childhood years. My childhood passions were music and science, and I spent many hours tending to my pet fish and practicing the piano and the violin.
My brother and I were fortunate to have our grandmother live with us while we were growing up. I remember how nice it was to come home to her every day after school. She was such a loving presence in the family. Both of my parents worked, fueled by the desire to give their children the best life they could have. Following the example of our parents, my brother and I learned early on the importance of hard work, and we both excelled academically. I continued to foster my love of science at the College of William and Mary, and ultimately I chose to become a physician with a strong desire to help others. In 1995, I was accepted to the Medical College of Pennsylvania.
I currently work as a psychiatrist with a specialization in addiction medicine at the Atlanta V.A. Medical Center, where I am the medical director of three substance abuse treatment tracks. My job is challenging but extremely rewarding. I feel privileged to be able to work with men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country. I meet a lot of interesting people and help them make their lives better. My job also provides a considerable amount of vacation time and family leave, which I will definitely be using with a new baby!
I still have an aquarium, but I also spend a lot of time with our dogs, Keiko and Sorsha, and our cats, Pooh-Bear and Sweet-Pea enjoy running and training for local races. Patrick and I also love to garden. Inside, we have a large collection of orchids and we try to always have something in bloom! Outside, we have a shade garden in the front of the house, and a daylily and hydrangea garden in the back.
Patrick loves Richard
He’s so cute, I want to wrap my arms around him and squeeze him. OK, check this story out: Richard is the sweetest man I know. He was walking to his car after work when he passed a storm drain and heard a little “Meow!” coming from the drain. He looked down and lo-and-behold there was a tiny kitten trapped down there. He tried to get the drain open but couldn’t. Everyone in the hospital was talking about the little kitten trapped in the drain, but no one was doing anything about it. So Richard calls up security, who refused to help. He then calls up the hospital maintenance team, who also refused to help. Finally, the animal control truck came out, opened the drain to get the kitten out. Weighing one pound, covered in fleas, and with one ear bitten off, she was still absolutely adorable! Our family got bigger because we added her to our family of two dogs, Keiko and Sorsha and now two cats, Pooh-Bear and Sweet Pea. More importantly, our family grew stronger because I was even more in love with Richard for being such a sweetheart.
Patrick
I was born 7 minutes after my twin sister in Cleveland, Ohio. Growing up she would tease me and say that I was her younger brother. My mother prided herself on being a stay-at-home mom and my dad worked as a scientist for NASA. Our family did everything together. We would make cookies at Christmas, they would read us bedtime stories, and we always sat down at the dinner table as a family. My mom was one of those PTA moms that knew everyone. I have a younger brother too, who is very athletic. He was captain of the football team, the basketball team, and the baseball team and student body president. My sister was also the starting varsity pitcher for the softball team. We had a warm loving family and we were encouraged to excel.
My family is Irish Catholic so naturally I attended Notre Dame for college. I really came into my own during that time of my life. I felt more confident about myself and discovered my own voice. I went to medical school and knew I wanted to be a psychiatrist after the first day in gross anatomy. Gross is right! I was too much for me, plus I really like getting to know people and appreciate people and their life story. I love my job! I work at the medical school teaching medical student and resident at the large public hospital in Atlanta and in the afternoons I do psychotherapy. I really get an appreciation for the many different ways people live their lives and what they go through in life. It is very meaningful to help someone grow as a person and feel happier with their life.
When we adopt a child, I plan to be a stay-at-home dad. I really appreciated how involved my parents were; especially my mom and we want to provide that for our child. Fortunately, we are able to do this financially. I’ll go back to psychiatry when the kids are in school.
Richard Loves Patrick
When I first met Patrick, I knew immediately that he was really special. He had a great personality: friendly, outgoing, happy, with bellowing laugh that was irresistibly infectious. He is fun and really easy to be with. He has such a positive energy and it is so palpable when you are with him.
We waited over two years to have our commitment ceremony, but I knew early on he was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I remember thinking that it was highly unlikely I would ever meet someone like him, and to this day I can still say the same. I’m so fortunate that he has chosen to spend the rest of his life with me.
Patrick has so much love to give, and I know he is just so excited about having our first kid together he can hardly stand it! He’s going to be an involved and dedicated father to our child.
Our Dream
We want to walk to the park with your child and teach them how to swim at the local pool. We hope to go to Disney World many times with Richard’s family who has a timeshares there. We hope to have many Christmases in Cleveland with Patrick’s family and Thanksgivings with Richard’s.
We hope to read bedtime stories and tuck them into bed every night. We will eat healthy foods, but still go to McDonald’s for a “Happy Meal” and an ice cream cone. We want your child to go to our private neighborhood school, one of the most diverse and best schools in Atlanta, which happens to be only a five minute walk from our house.
We want them to appreciate all cultures and people. In short, we want them to know what a beautiful, full, and exciting world this is and have every opportunity available to explore and be a part of it!
Our Promise
While we have been having fun telling you about us, we do take this very seriously. We waited a long time to adopt a child because we really wanted to make sure we were ready for something like this. We want to give your child the best possible experience. Patrick is going to stop working and be a stay-at-home dad until the children are in school. We both feel it is so important to be very involved parents because we were very fortunate to have such involved and dedicated parents ourselves.
We promise to love your child for who they are. We promise to teach them how special being adopted is. They will know what a loving mom you are and how giving you were to both your child and to us, if you were to have us as adopted parents. We cannot live out our dream as a family without you. Many people refer to this as the miracle of adoption. We think it is a beautiful way that one human being can love another – mother to child and mother to two dads. We will always be grateful.
If you would like to speak to us about adopting your child or have any questions for us, please contact one of our Adoption Advisers at AdoptHelp by calling 1-800-637-7999 toll free.
Warmly,Patrick and Richard
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