Eric and Lori

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From Us to You

We want you to know how grateful we are for this decision you are making. We couldn’t be parents without you and considering us to create a safe, loving and joyful world for your baby is a great honor. So, thank you. We’re Eric and Lori, and Mr. Inches is our rescued terrier/basset hound mix and Hot Shot looks like a polar bear but she’s actually a Pyrenees (and a fantastic cuddler!). In addition to being in love, we truly enjoy each other’s company and appreciate this wonderful life we share with our friends, family and fun-loving dogs. The video we put together captures how we live and what we’ve been up to lately so please check it out. It gives you a good idea on how we plan on being parents and the environment in which we’ll raise your baby. Until we can meet and really get to know each other, we’ve written out our world view as well as we could. We hope throughout our profile you feel the inquisitiveness, playfulness and endless laughter that we share in pretty much everything we do. This will be our family.

Like you probably feel right now, we are at a transition point. There is nothing more important to us than the family we want to create, and we are gratefully looking for your help. We promise to offer unconditional love, stability, and guidance as your baby discovers who they are, where they come from, and who they will become.  With the choice you are making, you will be part of a caring, sympathetic, and welcoming family, and your child is going to be forever deeply loved.

With fondness and gratitude,
Eric & Lori & Mr. Inches and Hot Shot

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Why We are Choosing to Adopt

Our discussions about the family we wanted have always included adoption. When we met through mutual friends in our 30s, we incorrectly assumed we still had plenty of time to settle in before having children.  Our reproductive timeline said otherwise.  The “Plan” was to have a child between us and then immediately begin the adoption process to hopefully welcome a second so the two could explore the world together from their unique perspectives. Eric went to boarding school and his brothers are the tight group of friends he made as an adolescent who are still intimately involved in his life. Lori’s family always had kids from other families staying with them for extended periods of time while their own biological parents dealt with life adjustments. Inclusivity is fundamentally ingrained in both of our upbringings and provided most of the best parts. Well…surprise! our “Plan” didn’t work. We tried and we tried, always thinking the next cycle was going to be the one. Then the pandemic hit while a bunch of very scary wildfires led us to leave southern California and suddenly the idea of having a family at all felt tragically out of reach. Thankfully, our dogs helped get us through it all.

All of this has been very valuable life lessons learned and we are now gratefully looking for your help to grow our family through adoption. Being able to adopt a child is going create a wonderful new era for us, to finally be able to share our experiences, our values, and this life we have worked hard to create. The upside of our struggle is that it taught us more about those “plans” that don’t go as planned, so that we can help a child make their way in this unpredictable world no matter what comes. We are a couple who does not take anything for granted and always looks forward to a bright future. We believe having a child will nourish and grow the best in both of us as we become parents, understanding there is nothing more important to us than this bond we have and the family we want to create. 

We know the path to becoming parents is sometimes fast, but sometimes takes a long and circuitous path (ours), but we feel our path has made us understand the world around us a little better.  It has certainly allowed us to cherish the idea of being parents even more. We are ready!

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About Lori, by Eric

It’s difficult to overstate how remarkable of a person Lori is but I want to focus on the mom-to-be, after quickly mentioning her career achievements because they really are amazing. After being raised in a pretty ideal family setting with lots of outdoor time on a ranch in Texas with her pet donkey and longhorn cow, and “sisters” from other parents living in the next room, it seemed logical for Lori to stay home in Texas. But Lori is adventurous to her core. She studied reconstructive surgery throughout the country and is currently the head of the Oregon’s Pediatric Craniofacial and Reconstructive Surgery department. Every single day she helps children lead better, more fulfilling lives. She also travels to sub-Saharan Africa each year to teach surgeons in these countries the surgical skills she knows so well to care for their own children whose needs often go unmet. It is not an overstatement to say that Lori is pioneer and an inspiration to an entire generation of female surgeons.

Lori works with children every single day and is absolutely incredible with them. She brings out their natural joy, grace and charm, even in the shyest, most scared patients. Kids feeling deep insecurities of “being different” light up and open themselves to her: smiling, singing, dancing – behaving in ways only their parents see in their most private moments. This doesn’t surprise me because as a partner, Lori lives with compassion, empathy and an emotional honesty that puts everyone at ease. There’s an accepting vibe Lori exudes, a real gift for including everyone and bringing out the commonalities we share. She makes friends deeply and, from her time spent training all over the nation, has friends she calls brothers and sisters scattered from state to state.  She has an incredible sense of humor and is a generally lot of fun, which is great for me, but also serves her well working in medicine, which can often be a serious business and sometimes needs moments of lightness to help all keep the hope.

Having Lori be able to apply her natural gifts and the incredible abilities she gives every day to other families, and fulfill her nurturing soul by being what she has always wanted to be – a mother – will be the greatest joy of my life.

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About Eric, by Lori

I first fell in love with my husband because he is debonair and creative and a gentleman and brilliant and worldly and able to have a meaningful and engaged conversation with just about anyone. I saw our world together as exciting and ever-expanding and was grateful to have met someone whose thirst for life was not pre-scripted. And though those things are all still very true, I now have deeper reasons to love Eric. He is honest and loyal. He is the least judgmental person I know. He is passionate about his beliefs and principles, but also is a very gentle soul. He not only tells me the world is my oyster but makes me believe it. He is such a good father to our dogs, Mr. Inches and Hot Shot. He does all the things that make our lives together feel safe and secure and beautiful.

Eric is a writer and that is just the coolest thing.  He has the confidence to pursue a career that asks that he take all the cultures, personalities and relationships he’s experienced and turn them into stories for other people. And he’s good at it! Also, being a writer kind of forces him to choose the most interesting and enriching path in everything he does, which we then get to share. I’m like a co-writer by just being there – which is a real perk. Eric’s love for world exploration and multi-culturalism began very young with his journalist parents living in Asia and the Middle East, then through forming his diverse extended family during his time at boarding schools in New England, then university life in the deep south before moving to LA – one of the most vibrantly diverse cities in the world. It takes a strong yet very sensitive soul to live as he has and he fills me and our pups every day with love and an expanded concept of our place in the world around us.

When I think of Eric as a father, it truly makes me emotional. The world through Eric’s eyes is a great adventure, one that deserves to be explored and understood for all its faults and all its spectacular moments. I am lucky to have a partner in life who fills me with such confidence and comfort and joy.

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Lifestyle

If we’ve had a guiding philosophy, it would be balance and discovery. We’ve been able to explore the world and our interest in the outdoors quite a lot. There are times for being very serious and being very buttoned down, and most times that are not. We love discovering new things – things we have yet to come across in nature and different cultures, not the front edge of technology or pop culture.

Travel has always been integral to us both. But we aren’t resort, big tourist destination type of travelers. We like to rent a car and discover the small towns and villages in other countries as well as parts of our own country, explore the culture by attempting to live like a local. Searching for farmers markets, hiking trails, swimming holes and eating regional food may be our favorite part of traveling. It’s a great way to meet people and appreciate the uniqueness of their culture.

Living in the Pacific Northwest has provided endless opportunities to wander the mountains, forests, rivers, and coastlines and we do that a lot with our furry companions in tow. We always take the back road route to discover hidden gems – Oregon is filled with waterfalls, country stores and obscure historical markers we love finding. We stop at hole-in-the-wall restaurants and any food stand we pass. We traded Southern California’s sunshine for the abundant greenery and water of Oregon, and we love it. But we do get back to California as much as we can because we still love it so much!  We cook together almost every night from what we pick up at the farmers markets (which are truly incredible here), and we go to movies (they have great theaters here), concerts, baseball games, soccer matches, the local theater and museums.  One would be hard-pressed to run out of amazing things to do in this part of the country!

Our very different careers and upbringing complement each other’s in interesting ways, and we really enjoy going through life seeing the world through each other’s eyes. The desire to discover and share moments is one of the most important things that brought us together. We really look forward to having a child to help forge their own excellent adventure as we get to experience the world through their eyes.

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How We Spend a Long Weekend

In addition to being in love, we truly enjoy each other’s company which particularly comes to light when we’re exploring new places – a must during any weekend but especially as a significant part of a long weekend. We’ve traveled the world, and hope to continue to do so, but we equally enjoy poking around the towns and communities surrounding us and the natural splendor of the Pacific Northwest. Throw our pups in the back seat and a full day of discovery awaits.

Living on the west coast has provided endless opportunities to wander the mountains, forests, rivers, and coastlines and, depending on the season, we rotate through the list. We recently bought a small motorboat to putter along the Willamette River and into its estuaries with the eagles, osprey and blue heron. We’ve taken up fly fishing but have yet to catch a fish. We will hit any and every farmers market we encounter and then cook up a meal of whatever seasonal haul we’ve landed. In the winters we ski on Mt. Hood.

With the pandemic somewhat under control we have gratefully returned to movie theaters and our city has some amazing old and grand theaters. We like to go to concerts, to baseball games, and to the Art Museum. We both went to big state universities so we love college sports and root for our alma maters during fall Saturdays. The summer is filled with long sunny days so there is plenty of time to cram a lot of activities into a weekend. We read (Eric reads a lot for work, Lori reads anything that has nothing to do with work). We wake up too early most days and try but fail to stay up late. And we always have Mr. Inches and Hot Shot by our side. We think a child will really enjoy this life.

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Careers

Lori is a pediatric craniofacial and reconstructive surgeon. It’s taken a lot of dedication, training and hard work to be able to help children lead better, more functional lives. Fixing cleft lips and palates, making paralyzed faces smile again, helping those who have suffered unfathomable traumas return to normalcy are just some of the surgeries she performs. Working at an academic hospital allows her to train the next generations of surgeons here in the US, while also working in Sub-Saharan Africa where she volunteers to train cleft surgeons in Malawi, Ghana, Congo, Kenya and Ethiopia. Reconstructive surgery is needed in every race, religion, and socio-economic demographic which, in addition to helping children reach their fullest potential, is the reason why Lori has pursued this amazing career: the diversity of her patients. With all that she does however, Lori is also a well-rounded person with a lot of interests that she pursues away from medicine. It’s essential to who she is and a balance she is as proud of as she is of her surgical results.

Eric’s path to becoming a screenwriter did not involve nearly as much training but was not short of sacrifices for his long-term goal. Creating a non-traditional career demands unwavering determination, persistent focus and day and night commitment. It took fifteen years of building his career through smaller projects before getting into the Writers Guild of America – the gold standard for screenwriting. His job entails being a lifelong student of the world, diving into the life experiences of others and figuring out how to share them with an entirely different group of people. Selling a movie or a television show provides incredible professional satisfaction, but it has always been the diverse experiences of the people and the cultural immersion he went through to create those projects that have made this career rewarding. Being able to help a child think about other people’s experiences and process the uniqueness inherent in everyone’s life journey in this way would be the greatest reward of all.

We have both created interesting careers through our ambition and years of persistent effort. But the sacrifices included not being able to have a family of our own, which was a cost neither of us really understood at the time. But it is part of our story and another part of the life/work balance that we will counsel a child through as they forge their own path in this world.

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Our Dogs

Mr. Inches is a phenom. We take him camping, skiing, cross-country road tripping, to the beach, to the store…pretty much everywhere. He’s the ultimate sidekick. We truly can’t start our car without him jumping into the backseat. He loves children and given his size (one foot tall and three feet long), they love him too. A mix between a basset hound and a terrier, the Mister looks like a Muppet character and brings absolute delight to anyone we pass.

We rescued Hot Shot, our fluffy polar bear looking Pyrenees in the days between Christmas and the New Year over year ago. She came from Texas (Lori’s birth state) and was born on Eric’s birthday, so it felt destined for her to join us. She embodies puppy personality in all the best ways being entirely filled with sweetness for everything and everyone. And, as a Great Pyrenees, her sole responsibility is to watch over her flock and cuddle with them, so we know she’s ready for a baby. It’s very comforting to watch her make sure we’re all good wherever we go (before she tries to get in some serious snuggling), even if it’s just a quick trip to the kitchen. Mr. Inches and his “little sister” Hot Shot are both incredibly loving protectors who would be thrilled to help us raise, love and protect your baby (and snuggle!).

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Racial Diversity

It feels like our country is doing a lot of soul searching right now. It has always been our deeply held belief that diversity is fundamental to living life to its fullest. It has underpinned our career choices, the way we were raised, the way we have chosen to explore the world, and both our philosophical and political identities. We will embrace your baby’s racial and cultural heritage and ensure it is integral to every part of their upbringing. We promise to surround them with children and role models who share their skin color and racial identity – it’s easy to do in our fields of medicine and entertainment – as well as to expose them to the broader global community so that they can experience firsthand the spectrum of possible journeys created by other races and nationalities around the world. We want them to feel empowered by where they have come from so that they can be bold in choosing who they want to become. We believe that will come from you, and us, and them.

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Home and Neighborhood

We recently settled into a charming, woodsy neighborhood in the hills overlooking Portland. We have a great view of the mountains and a nighttime panorama of the city sparkling at night. Coming from southern California we were drawn to this Mediterranean home and have even come around on the fact that it’s painted peach – it sets it apart on our block! It has a separate living room/play area and two extra bedrooms for our growing family, visiting relatives and friends who come often because the PNW really is a uniquely beautiful part of the country. A huge perk to our neighborhood is that as one of the best elementary schools in the state is a five-minute walk down the hill. There are also extensive hiking trails through the forests that surround us and two parks with play equipment, basketball and tennis courts and a baseball diamond within very close walking distance (all enjoyed thoroughly by our dogs). The soccer stadium where our MLS team (The Portland Timbers!) play is a mile away and we have season tickets. The hospital where Lori works is a ten-minute drive, so she often comes home for lunch or just to hang out between cases. She can even take a hiking trail to the hospital if she’s feeling really adventurous and sporty. With everything we were looking for in the Pacific Northwest so close by, we believe this is an ideal spot for us to begin our family.

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Our Families and Friends

Like everybody, our parents are getting older and we make it our priority to see them as much as we can. We visit with Lori’s parents five to six times a year and like to meet them in fun places – like Santa Fe, New Mexico where they used to live or at their ranch in Texas or up in the San Juan Islands so they can get out of the Texas heat. But, also, they come up to see as us at home in Portland much as possible which is the best because it’s really nice having them around. Eric’s mother lives in a beautiful and historic town near the coast of North Carolina and we visit with her and his sister, a few hours inland, and love the chance to get out there as much as we can. Our parents were big influences on both of us growing up giving us the foundation of unconditional love and the teachings of what it means to work hard for what we have all the while making the world a better and more interesting place.   But also, as we mentioned earlier, our concept of family has always included people who were not biologically related to us from a very young age. We have taken just as many life lessons from our friends and non-related brothers and sisters as we have our folks and are so grateful to have this extended group of people we call family.

We have a fantastic and extensive group of friends spread across the country. Lori trained at hospitals on both coasts as well as in Houston and Chicago, where we met a lot of cool and wonderful people that have remained close. Having gone to boarding school on the east coast while his parents were working abroad, Eric grew up living with a handful of friends he truly considers family. They have over thirty years of watching each other turn from young adolescents, to adults, to husbands and parents. We both feel our family is comprised of this entire group – and our parents completely agree. As recent transplants to the Pacific Northwest, we’ve really enjoyed showing everyone all that we have discovered when they visit. Having the perks of a city but with so much access to the outdoors and a much smaller population looks very appealing to our friends living in the big cities. But it is this deep foundation of friends and family from all corners of the country that enabled us to move to here in the first place, knowing that we weren’t losing the bonds that have been so important to us throughout our lives.

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What Adoption Means to Us

When we met through mutual friends, we incorrectly assumed we still had plenty of time to settle in. A very valuable life lesson learned, we are now gratefully looking for your help to make our family through adoption, our one and only priority. Adoption will create a wonderful new era for us, to finally be able to share our experiences, our values, and this life we have worked hard to create. We truly feel having a child will nourish and grow the best in both of us as we become parents. We have been wanting a family for such a long time but were too self-absorbed pursuing our careers, thinking that was what “stability” meant, that we were being “responsible.” We understand there is nothing more important to us than this bond we have and the family we want to create. And this was the point of all the hard work in the first place. We regret that it has taken us this long to figure it out, but that’s how life goes. At least ours. However, we are happy to say that understanding the “being responsible” rationale in this new way is going to make us better parents.

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What We Will Teach Your Child

That their birth mother was our hero and that they are surrounded by love from every angle.

We believe that along with their desire to sleep, eat, poop and cry, children are born with an innate sense of kindness, goodwill and empathy. So, we’re going to double down on those. And we’re going to add in curiosity, good humor, self-belief, generosity of spirit and open mindedness in thought. We hope to raise an intelligent, global citizen who will have the courage and moral compass to do and be whatever they want, wherever they want. They are going to know that they are bettering themselves by bettering those around them. It starts by raising a happy, secure, and loved baby who is exposed to the people, places, sights, smells and tastes that will continue stimulate them throughout their life. Their childhood will bring more fun with an emphasis on education and art and nature, so that opportunities will begin to present themselves from their own achievements. Adolescence and teenage years should allow for more emotional growth and expansion once their foundation is secure by making headway on the opportunities they’ve created by exploring their interests – the more varied the better, in our opinion.

Ultimately, we want to help them become the best versions of themselves with as little nudging (or a lot, if needed) from us and all the lessons and experiences and triumphs and failures we’ve experienced. We’ve had plenty of all the above. But they will always know that it is love that is driving every part of their journey – from you and from us, to them. Always.

We know that being adopted can open questions of identity at any point in their development. Our plan is to be nimble. We want to offer grounded, unconditional love and support while they work through the identity that has come from you and us, and how it adds up to their evolving sense of self. As they have graced us in the life we have created, we will do the same – happily putting ourselves in whatever environment they need to make their life feel its fullest.

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Family Traditions

We are making our traditions as we go. Lori’s family hosted large, extended family gatherings over every holiday, and celebrated every birthday, achievement and award as if it were a national event. Eric’s family, separated by his parents’ work overseas, would only see each other during summers and over winter breaks in far-off interesting places for his teenage years so traditions often incorporated those of different cultures and societies which was frankly just super cool. So, we’re taking the best of both!

• Our birthdays are two days apart (as is Hot Shot’s), so we make a multiweek celebration out of it which usually involves some amazing travel and food of course; Cinco de Mayo is the made-up birthday for Mr. Inches, so it is a major celebration, too.
• We’re not religious people, so we treat the religious holidays as festive celebrations with lots of cooking and eating and giving thoughtful gifts to those we love, and recognize holidays our friends follow if they want to get together. Because the getting together is best part.
• Thanksgiving is often Friendsgiving, but we do like to make it to Lori’s family’s ranch for some traditional Thanksgiving festivities including campfires, college football, seeing her aunt and uncle’s horses in the next county and, of course, lots of food.
• We celebrate our role as citizens of the world as well as Americans during patriotic holidays like Memorial and Independence Day and try to take in small town parades that accompany these holidays.
• Also, living in Portland, Halloween and Pie Day (3/14) are especially celebrated which is just fun.
• We take trips to sunny and preferably warm places at least two times through the winter and spring because we live in the Pacific Northwest.
• Saturday mornings are for going to the farmer’s market and Sundays are meant for exploring new things like a road trip, a restaurant, a walk in a neighborhood. In the fall we watch college football because we both went to state colleges with big sports programs – cue University of Texas and University of Florida here please.
• We go camping at least twice during the year, but hopefully it’s more like five times.
• Most of all, we look forward to having a child who can help create new traditions out of whatever they feel is important to have a fun, meaningful life. It’s a tradition.

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Our Promise to You

Again, it is important for you to know how deeply grateful we are for the decision you are making. You are considering us (or someone like us), to become parents of your child. It’s a big decision. We hope you understand, by getting to know us, that you are making an amazing contribution to our lives that we couldn’t have done without you. Your child will be loved, respected and nourished to become the fullest, happiest version of themselves. We are sensitive, caring, emotionally available people with good heads on our shoulders who are trying to live meaningful, fun, benevolent lives. It is why we got married – we finally found the special other we had always been searching for after so many years. That same appreciation is how we will approach raising your child. To bring out the best in them, on whatever terms those mean for them. Though it is difficult to say what the future holds for the world around us, we believe the principles we live by, that we hope to pass along: curiosity, empathy, joyfulness, and self-belief will serve your child forever going forward. We will also embrace their pursuit of their genetic and cultural background and dive in alongside them as they bring their self-identity into focus. We don’t take the concept of family for granted and look forward to becoming a bigger, happier family with your help.  We can’t wait to meet you!