Andrew and Zack
Thank you for reading our letter! We’re Andrew (right) and Zack (left.) We live in Portland, Oregon and love calling the Rose City home. We take full advantage of all the opportunities the surrounding area presents, like the abundant natural beauty, the beaches and mountains, and the many nature trails in our neighborhood, and we can’t wait to share Oregon’s awesomeness with our future child.
We both grew up in Pennsylvania – Zack spent his childhood in the suburbs outside of Pittsburgh, and Andrew in the Philadelphia area. We met in 2013 while working and living in our nation’s capital, Washington, DC. After ten years of DC life, we were both eager for a change of scenery and pace… the West was calling. We answered that call by packing up our life and driving across the country with our two kitties. We have been engaged since December 2015 and finally tied the knot in May 2021. Our relationship has grown and strengthened throughout all these years and we knew we wanted to be married when we started our family.
Andrew is funny and kind. He grew up with a deep love of animals, and has volunteered for animal rescues and worked at a zoo. He adopted two kittens, Ben and Finn, from a rescue in 2008, and they have been with him through all the changes in his adult life, including accepting Zack as their second dad. Andrew became a vegetarian in 2009 and always tries to think about the impact his actions have on the environment. He enjoys playing board games and video games, and is a big fan of all things Disney and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Andrew currently works at a local university and has enjoyed working on college campuses since 2007.
Zack is smart and caring and has an insatiable hunger for knowledge. He enjoys reading in his spare time, particularly non-fiction. He’s often found watching the latest documentary on TV about any imaginable topic, but some of his favorites include the British monarchy, world history, and learning about the many ways people live their lives. Zack has worked for the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization for nearly eleven years, and it is through Zack’s work that we are able to be in the position we are right now as a married gay couple looking to start our family.
We plan to raise our child with the values we hold dear – empathy, compassion, respect, kindness, and
openness. We want our child to be a good citizen of the world, respectful of its people, and a caretaker of the environment. As our future child’s birth family, we look forward to incorporating you into our lives, so that our child understands their identity and background, and has a profound respect for your sacred decision to entrust us to raise them.
Growing up gay in the 1990s, marriage and a family just didn’t seem like something that we’d ever be able to attain. We felt so different, and alone, and like our dreams for our future would never come true. The long march toward equality for LGBTQ people in the United States, and the progress we’ve seen in just the last decade, showed us that, in fact, the dreams that almost every little kid has… of getting married and starting their own family, have finally become a real possibility.
We can’t wait to start this next step in our journey – not just with our new child, but with the new
extended family that open adoption will bring into our lives.
Andrew and Zack