Hello! We are Roberto and Justin from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We have been married for 8 years and together for 12. We are so grateful to you for considering us to be the adoptive parents of your child. We have built a loving home in Philly and we are beyond excited to begin the adoption journey together. We know that adoption is a deeply personal decision and we want to let you know that we will provide unconditional love and support for your child. Thank you so much for taking the time to get to know us!

We have hoped to grow our family through adoption since we got married. Family is very important to us, and we are dreaming of the many holiday traditions, cultural experiences, and vacations we will get to share with our beloved child.

We met in graduate school while studying poetry. We were both smitten at first sight, though it took some time to realize that we shared the same feelings. In fact, when Justin finally worked up the courage to ask Roberto out on a date, he found out that Roberto planned to ask him out the very same night. That was June 28, 2012, and we have been together ever since. We are strongly connected through our love of learning, arts and culture, and helping to create a more just and beautiful world.

We have always been united by our love of travel. One of the first trips we took together was to Japan, which Roberto had always wanted to visit. That trip inspired many others, including to China, Singapore, Europe, Mexico, and Australia. We love taking trips with our family as well. We have taken regular family trips to Disneyland, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean. We can't wait to begin traveling with our future child to show them the world! In our home city of Philadelphia, we enjoy visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Opera Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as the many street and neighborhood festivals that Philly is famous for. We see a lot of live theater in Philly and New York City, including plays and musicals, comedy, and concerts. We cannot wait to share these experiences with our kid! These activities connect to our core values of life-long learning, exploring other cultures, and participating in and supporting the arts in our local community.

I am a poet who is lucky enough to work as Deputy Director for a nonprofit organization in New York City that supports poets and poetry. I mostly work remotely, and I typically visit the office in NYC once per month. I published my first book of poetry in 2014, and since that time have been immersed in the world of poetry and literature through my job. I recently completed my second master’s degree in data science, so I’m excited to advance my career by exploring opportunities that allow me to use my newly acquired data skills. I am very excited to share my love of reading and writing with our child, and to help them with their education by reading to them from an early age, encouraging them to create stories, drawings, and paintings, and generally exploring their creative side. I think I will be the rare parent who is equally at home helping my child with writing, science, and math!

One of the things I love most about Roberto is how dedicated he is to caring for his loved ones. Before we took a recent trip to Australia, one of our nieces told us that her new favorite animal is the koala. So, throughout our vacation, we made multiple excursions so that Roberto could take photos of them for her. We visited a zoo where Roberto bought and mailed her a postcard featuring the koalas there, and we even got to hold a koala at a nature reserve to take more photos for her. Roberto’s ability to discover, share, and encourage the interests of our nieces and nephews is one of his best attributes. His natural curiosity is contagious and it helps to encourage kids to follow their instincts and learn more about the things that bring them joy. He is equally supportive of my own dreams and aspirations.

I was raised to be a very hardworking person, and I feel most happy when I’m being active in some way. That means that when I’m not working remotely for a nonprofit documentary company, I’m staying active by running, riding my bike, and rowing on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. I am very proud of the work I do professionally; I support documentary filmmakers who make films about arts and culture, civil rights, and history, and even worked on an Academy Award-nominated film. I’m equally proud of my hobbies, most especially running; I participate in several races every year and will soon be training for my seventh marathon. I am excited to impart my love of athletics to our child; I can’t wait to take them running with me in a jogging stroller, and when they’re older, exploring the beautiful hiking and biking trails around Philadelphia with them.

Justin is the most thoughtful and intelligent person I know! What I love about Justin is that his intelligence is always inviting, never pretentious, and is rooted in a deeply held sense of justice and care for community. At social gatherings he invites everyone into the conversation with humor, charm, and wit. One hour with him can make me feel like it is possible to be a better person and make a better world. When we are with our nieces and nephews, Justin asks them about their dreams, their goals, and their thoughts on the world. He is always interested in what they think and who they are becoming. I have seen how much they appreciate being listened to and taken seriously (even when they're playing Pokemon!). I am so excited and proud to raise a family with such an incredible and loving husband.

We are fortunate to live in the large and diverse city of Philadelphia, where there is a rich mix of neighborhoods, arts, and cultural experiences to enjoy year-round. From strolling through our local farmers market to biking along the riverfront trails, we love making the most of the city’s outdoor spaces and unique events. Justin is a member of a local boathouse and rows regularly on the Schuylkill River, and we both enjoy spending time exploring the Wissahickon Trail and other scenic pockets around the city. We’re excited to one day experience it all through the eyes of a child—whether that’s walking to our neighborhood park, discovering hands-on exhibits at the Please Touch Museum, or soaking in the fun at nearby Sesame Place. We love that Philadelphia offers so much to families and we’re looking forward to continuing our traditions—and creating new ones—as our family grows.

We are blessed to have 6 nieces and 4 nephews ages 2 through 30. Justin has been an uncle since he was in the second grade, and in recent years we’ve welcomed many new nieces and nephews to the family. We have a large extended family, and our youngest nieces and nephews live nearby in New York and Connecticut, so we get to spend a lot of time with them. We enjoy spending holidays with them, from opening gifts on Christmas morning, planning Easter egg hunts, and celebrating birthdays. We can't wait to celebrate these occasions with our own child! We also spend a lot of time with our parents and siblings, many of whom live nearby in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. We have family in the Midwest and Nevada who we get to see a few times a year. We have established a loving and supportive group of friends in Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York, with whom we’re very close.

We love celebrating holiday traditions with our families, including decorating for Christmas and baking rainbow cookies, cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and celebrating Three Kings Day with our nieces and nephews. One of our nephews is currently obsessed with Halloween, so it’s a great joy to take him shopping at Spirit Halloween and to pumpkin patches and corn mazes each fall.

Roberto is the godfather to his oldest niece, who calls him “Padrino” – Spanish for “godfather.” As a small child, she abbreviated “Padrino” to “Dino” and it stuck, so now our nieces and nephews refer to Roberto as “Dino” and Justin as “Tio” (“uncle”).

We think about our desire to be parents in the same way that the writer bell hooks defines love: "the will to extend one’s self to nurture one’s own or another’s spiritual growth." We have a strong desire to extend ourselves to a child as parents, helping them to cultivate a love and curiosity for the world and the people around them. We truly believe that our greatest purpose on earth is to better love, support, and understand other people, and we will apply that purpose to raising a child who shares those values.

Thank you so much for taking the time to get to know us. We are choosing an open adoption process because it is important to us that our child knows from day one that they are loved unconditionally by everyone who brought them into this world. Our child will know that we were selected by you to be their dads and that we spent many years excitedly anticipating their arrival in this world. We are excited to establish and maintain a relationship with you that ensures that you are honored and recognized as the birth parent and that our child knows who you are and whatever else you want them to know. Please reach out to us for any for more information you might like to know or discuss!

With heartfelt thanks,
Roberto and Justin