Finding our Missing Piece
December 6th, 2022 we received the phone call that would forever change our lives. We had been matched, and couldn't wait to meet the birth mom who had chosen us! After the longest week of our lives, we were sitting down with the young woman who already seemed like a dear old friend. Her due date was mid-March, so we didn't have too long to wait, and just enough time to prepare.
The next couple months we spent preparing our hearts and home and getting to know the birth mom even more. To say we feel blessed with our match is an understatement. Come delivery day, we were so fortunate to be in the room with her and her mom during delivery. To be front and center during that emotional, physically exhausting experience is something we'll never forget.
Our handsome baby boy came into the world and we've been on the move ever since. He is the perfect missing piece of our puzzle, and has been adventuring with us from that first day. Our fur babies adore him, our families are over the moon and we continue to keep in touch with our new friend, his birth mom, who will always hold a special place in our lives.
Below is the story of how we arrived at where we are today!
Dear Birth Parents,
We are Louis & Amy and we have been praying for the chance to begin our family through adoption. After years of unsuccessful attempts to start a family, we felt a pull that God has a different plan in store for us. As you may be feeling this very moment, we have learned we cannot always make our own plans in life. Realizing and accepting this calling from God has given us a great sense of peace. We firmly believe every life is a blessing and we are being asked to support you in this small way if you so choose. While we would love nothing more than to meet you for our first impression, we have done our best to give you a glimpse into our lives through the story of our journey captured below. We do hope to meet you one day soon and begin a new chapter with you in whatever way you feel most called to.
Love from Louis & Amy
A little about us...
We are an inseparable couple. Louis enjoys everything to do with the outdoors, and Amy is right there alongside him. Although sometimes Amy is the one pulling Louis up the mountain on our next adventure. We first met during Amy’s sophomore and Louis’s junior year at Benedictine College. Amy was an economics & finance Major. Louis was studying business administration with a focus in management so our coursework sometimes overlapped. Louis competed on Benedictine’s track team as a high jumper, and Amy participated in various intramural sports throughout college.
On a campus full of students always wearing gym shorts & tennis shoes, to this day Amy remembers first noticing Louis for the jeans and work boots he was always in. When Louis first noticed Amy during her freshman year, he knew she was someone he wanted to get to know. A year later, we were finally introduced. We've been together ever since!
We quickly fell in love with each other through common interests such as fishing, outdoor adventures, and a love of our Catholic faith.
Throughout our early years of dating, we spent a lot of time together, both at school and traveling to each other's hometowns. We got to know each other's families and friends during this time and quickly built our community of loving people who still support us to this day.
Amy moved to Omaha after graduating college to be closer to Louis who had moved back to his hometown in Iowa. After Amy secured a good job, we took a little trip to Colorado to visit Amy's family. It was during this trip Louis surprised Amy with a proposal in the very mountains she grew up fishing in.
After that trip to Colorado, Louis moved to Omaha to be closer to Amy and ended up being roommates with Amy's brother who was back in the city for work. We spent that year wedding planning and enjoying Omaha. It wasn't long before we purchased a couple of kayaks to help us explore the lakes in the area.
Louis would tell you that year of wedding planning felt like a lifetime, but in reality....well it did go by pretty slow! We got married in Omaha in October of 2014 alongside our closest friends and extended family.
Click play below to hear a little more about this journey for us!
We ended up living in Omaha for about 2 years during our engagement and first year of marriage. It was shortly after Louis first joined Amy in Omaha when he found his true calling and went back to school where he studied to become an Electrical Lineman. Fall of 2015, a year into our marriage, Louis was chosen to compete for an Apprenticeship Program with Westar Energy in Kansas.
As one of 7 finalists from the original 25 competing, Louis earned an offer for employment in El Dorado, KS. We moved just before Christmas that year and began our next adventure together.
After moving back to Kansas, we began the process of building our first home in the Wichita area. We also felt a calling that it was time to begin trying to start our family, both having been blessed with stable and steady jobs. Our next several years were spent in a combination of working on our house and adventuring with each other, all while praying for God to bless us with a little one of our own.
Finishing our basement ourselves to save some money ended up being quite the experience. It helped us really turn our house into our home.
It didn't take us long to start our family with a couple of furry friends. Bullett is a Cava Bear and we got her as a puppy in early 2016. Gunner is a lab mix we rescued as a 4-month-old from a shelter in Oklahoma a year later.
These two pups do everything with us. Bullett was on a kayak before she was 6 months old, sporting her little shark-fin life vest.
Bullett and Gunner both love fishing about as much as we do. The pups make their voices heard every time we catch a fish and release it if they don't get a chance to lick it first!
We are a couple that truly just enjoys spending our time together. Whether we’re watching a movie, out hunting, or boating, there is always something we'll find to keep busy.
Since we got married, we've taken every opportunity to explore, going on many adventures together. Our senses of humor are intertwined in all that we do.
We joke with each other that we're so happy Louis paid for his 4-year education at Benedictine if merely to meet Amy. Over the years, we have come to realize we can try to make plans, but more often than not God will laugh and lead us another direction. So far we've been blessed with the directions He has led us, but still we continue to pray for the miracle of starting our family.
Our People
Our families (and friends that are essentially family!) are already so excited to be supporting us with our adoption journey. We are deeply blessed with a wide net of relationships both old and new, made up of people who have entered our lives through God’s grace and plan for us.
We are blessed to be Aunt and Uncle to our two nieces and one nephew who live about two hours away from us. There are ongoing debates as to who adores who more (but we're winning!). On the right, Louis is taking his brother out with the kiddos for a day of fishing at a nearby lake. Louis is godfather to his brother's oldest daughter, and Amy is godmother to his youngest daughter.
We couldn't close without also introducing Amy's childhood friend and his family who have been in her family's lives since they first met in Kindergarten.
They don't exactly remember how they met, most likely he either pulled her hair, or she pushed him down the slide when he wasn't expecting it. Regardless, it was friends-at-first-recess and they have spent their lives intertwined with each other’s families ever since.
We did everything together from the same homeschool group in grade school, through high school practicing against each other for tennis, and even college. Amy also ended up a close friend and roommate with his soon-to-be bride during their senior year of college.
This friendship has led to endless adventures together, and we continue to build lasting memories between our families. Louis and Amy are now godparents to their daughter. On the right was a camping trip we took together during the summer of 2021. Two of his three brothers and Amy's entire family reunited for this trip in the heat of an Oklahoma summer.
Louis's Dad
I know it's cheesy to say that your dad is your hero, but when I "grow up," I dream of being half as good a man as he is. He was always loving and went the extra mile to lead by example so his three boys could grow up to be respectful, hard-working adults.
My dad worked in the local city offices for over 35 years where he had to deal with all kinds of people. He never raised his voice or interrupted anyone, even if they were yelling at him for something he had no control over. I've never encountered someone with such patience. I believe I got my outlook on life and other people from him. He was a great example of "Treat others as you would like to be treated."
My dad taught me so much about sports and the outdoors. He coached my baseball and basketball teams and taught me how to golf, fish, hunt, camp, and so much more. Some days when we weren't at a high school baseball practice, we would go up to the park where he would throw batting practice and hit pop flies to help me get better. Only as I got older and had to pay my own bills did I begin to understand the sacrifice my parents had to make by always traveling for our sporting events and feeding three growing boys!
My Dad has truly been an inspiration to me, my brothers, and so many other people. I will always treasure the memories we have and the ones we have yet to make!
Louis's Mom
My mother was a stay-at-home mom all the years we were growing up. It was such a blessing having her always there to care for us no matter what we needed, whether it was homework or mending constant scrapes from playing outside. She was strict yet always loving, molding me into a disciplined adult who hopes to someday raise children of my own.
My mom is so talented around the house, that most people wouldn't believe it. She is an excellent cook and baker. She could also mend our clothes and perform the miracle of getting grass stains out of our white sports uniforms. My brothers and I had chores growing up, but they paled in comparison to the work mom put in making our home clean and orderly.
I love talking to both my parents on the phone as often as possible and value the times we can get together. We love playing board games and cards; both mom and dad are excellent at cards! Amy and I love taking them out on the boat for fishing and just cruising around. My parents are the most loving people I know, and we cherish every memory and the time we get to spend together.
Amy's Dad
My Dad has been in the lumber sales business since I was little. Growing up, we couldn't enter a Lowe's or Home Depot without running into at least 5 people he knew. It quickly became a standing joke in our family. Looking back on these interactions, they truly spoke to his character and how much of an impact he made on his community. My Dad worked for a commission, and wow did he work like crazy to support our family. I can't recall him ever taking even a single sick day.
Even through the hard work and what I'm sure were long, stressful days trying to make ends meet for our family, my Dad was always happy. He had dinner with us every night, came to our tennis matches, and swim practices, and coached those dreaded 6-year-old soccer leagues as well as my brother's hockey team all with a smile on his face.
Thinking back on the supportive, loving, and nurturing environment he provided for my siblings and I, one would never suspect he didn't have even close to that same experience in his own childhood. My Dad instilled in me a deeply rooted appreciation for my faith life, unparalleled work ethic, and compassion for others that will forever guide my life.
Amy's mom
When I think about my Mom, there are endless stories I want to share. Stories of self-sacrifice, encouragement, and love that I couldn't find from anyone but her. She spent our childhood as a Stay-at-Home Mom, while also managing several different part-time positions to help support our family. She was the reason we all viewed our house as a home.
Mom took on the challenge of homeschooling the three of us kids during our grade-school years when she realized we weren't getting the education we needed from the schools we were in. Looking back, I can't imagine how different our lives would have been without this support.
Our Mom didn't stop sacrificing her own time for us after we went to public high school, but rather began the next phase by supporting our many different activities. She would always pack our lunches while also making us breakfast before we headed out the door. Mom ran us around to all sorts of piano, dance, tennis, and swim lesson practices over the years. She answered countless calls from me after I left for college, a little homesick from time to time when just chatting with her for a few minutes would help ease that feeling.
My Mom may never know just how much her positive encouragement, loving support, and motherly intuition has, and continues to impact each of our lives. She has battled a lot for her health in recent years, more than one person should ever have to endure. She continues to be an inspiration to not only her family but those she comes into contact with daily.
If you're still with us, we want to thank you for taking the time to learn a little more about us, our families, and the support system we are blessed with. Our goal was to give you just a glimpse into the kind of people we are.
While pulling everything together to share with you today, we had to filter out so many pictures and stories we really wanted to share. We didn't want this story to take a year to get through though! Our only hope is that if you see in us a good fit, you see a couple that will provide endless love and support for your little one. A couple that will shower them with encouragement, instill in them an appreciation for hard work, and teach them how to celebrate their successes, of which we know there will be many. While pulling this profile together, we've become even more excited about meeting you both.
No matter what you choose at this point, please know that we've been praying for you. We've each had long journeys to get to where we are today. Prayer is something we have consistently relied on and it gives us both great peace, even in difficult times. Although we haven't met you yet, and even if we never do, we will continue to wrap you in our prayers in the years to come.
Love from Louis & Amy