We always knew we wanted to be parents. Fertility challenges brought us to the question of IVF. The hormonal demands would have been genuinely hard on Jenna's health, and we both agreed: showing up healthy for a child mattered more than how we got there. Our goal had always been a family. Not specifically a biological one.

The conversation that settled it happened in our living room, over coffee. It went further than just the decision. We talked about the kind of family we want to build, and the values we kept coming back to were simple: be kind, try new things, and have fun.

We think about the person on the other side of this often. Someone choosing what is best for a child even when it’s hard because of love. We don’t take that lightly.

We’re not going to wait for the child to ask. From early on, their story will be part of how our family talks about itself. We've already been connecting with families who have adopted, and plan to keep doing that. Partly to learn from people who have experienced it. And partly because we want our child to grow up around other children who were adopted, so they are never the only one in the room.

One family we talked to made a children's book for their child about their adoption story, with pictures and text, something the child could come back to at any age on their own terms. We want to do the same. We also plan to keep every document from the process, including the original birth certificate, knowing how much those materials can matter as an adoptee gets older and wants to understand their full story. Beyond the facts, we want to give the child a language to talk about how they feel about adoption, at five, at fifteen, at forty.

The way we see it, adoption expands a family. The child has a birth family who loves them and made one of the hardest choices a person can make because of it. We want them to grow up feeling that. And they’ll have us. That is a lot of people in their corner. We will make sure the child always knows it.

In Kumar's family, food is how love gets shown. Kumud (aka Ba), his grandmother, was the one who embodied that most. Her Indian recipes passed down to his mom, who taught Kumar, and those dishes are at every gathering. Upma in the morning, which is something like cream of wheat but spiced in a way that makes the comparison feel inadequate. His personal favorite: papad bhat, a rice dish with cilantro and papad, a thin crispy wafer. His grandfather's homemade mango ice cream still comes up whenever the family talks about food.

When Ba flew in from Michigan to Colorado, we had only recently started dating. Ba packed Indian ingredients and pre-made food in her carry-on bag. She got stopped by TSA, but fortunately made it through with all of it. She had come all that way to share it with Jenna. Kumar's culture has genuinely become part of Jenna’s, through the recipes, the family stories, and the way the family gathers.

If we adopt a child of a different race or heritage, we would approach their culture the same way: as part of the whole family's life, not just the child's. That might mean learning a language together, traveling to places connected to their ancestry, finding community, attending cultural events as a family. It would become part of our family culture.

Kumar About Jenna:

How she shows up for loved ones. Jenna's sister lived with us for about two years while she was getting back on her feet. Jenna did her laundry, cleaned up after her, made her day easier in all the small ways that add up. She also kept encouraging her to do things that would help make her feel better, like going for walks, spending time with friends, and going to therapy. The everyday version of that shows up at dinner when she asks Kumar for his rose, bud and thorn: what went well, what looking forward to, and what was hard. It’s her way of making sure the real stuff gets said. She’s curious about most things. She asks real questions about people's lives, and when something interests her, she wants to try it. When Kumar's dad got into woodworking, she tried it with him. She wanted to know what it was actually like.

Jenna About Kumar:

His sense of humor. He makes difficult moments lighter, and he does not take himself too seriously, which puts people at ease. Jenna's sister confided in him throughout those two years. She knew he was not going to judge her. People figure that out about him quickly. He makes friends wherever he goes, and the way he does it is by making fun of himself first. He is a natural storyteller, animated and expressive, and perfectly happy to tell you about the time he got something wrong. The slow-cooked shrimp that left a smell in the Tupperware they never quite got out. The jerk chicken that was genuinely inedible. People laugh and then they share their own. He makes it easy to not take yourself too seriously around him.

Kumar’s family loves games, especially board games and card games like Euchre. And then there are the organized events. During the pandemic, Kumar's family did the COVID Olympics, with events including racing around the living room while lying flat on their back and blowing a single grain of rice across the floor as fast as possible. The person in last place owed the winner a favor, whether that was cooking a meal or helping with a home repair. The competition was serious.

On Jenna's side, birthdays are celebrated by month. Jenna’s Dad, Brother-in-law, and Kumar share one month; Jenna, her Mom, and Grandma share another. Everyone gathers for candles, a song, and their own favorite dessert. Kumar's is strawberry cheesecake. Jenna's is chocolate ice cream cake. After dessert, everyone moves outside for water balloons in the backyard or a walk together. 

Between both families there are three nephews, all under six. The oldest is deep in his dinosaur phase and tells us all about the species and habitats. Another asked for worms for Christmas, received some from Santa, and has been looking for more ever since. We’ve learned a lot. Both of our families live within an hour, so we also get together for weeknight dinners, Saturday hikes, and the zoo. A child coming into our family has cousins, traditions, and fun waiting for them.

We appreciate you considering adoption, and we’re so glad you found us.

We’re Kumar and Jenna. We’ve been together for 10 years and married for 4, and we live just south of Denver with our dog, Nori, who treats every game of fetch like it’s the most important thing on earth. We’ve wanted to be parents for a long time, and we’ve spent years imagining what our family life would look like.

Picture a typical Tuesday: Jenna walks our child to school. After school, they’re off doing something they love: an art class, a sport, or whatever sparks their interest. Kumar makes dinner almost every night using his grandmother's Indian recipes, explaining each step while a little set of hands measures, stirs, and pours. A grandparent, aunt, or cousin might drop by for a bite, and later, we’ll sit down together for homework. On weekends, you’ll find us outside at the pool, the park, the mountains, or a sledding hill with friends and family.

Family is everywhere in our lives. We have grandparents, aunts, uncles, three cousins all under six, and close friends nearby with young kids of their own. Any child joining our home would walk into a big, warm world already waiting for them. Whatever they fall in love with, whether it’s sports, art, or science, we’ll show up completely. Kumar already claims that if they want to play sports, he’s coaching; whatever they’re passionate about, he wants to be right there in it with them, not watching from the sidelines.

Jenna cares deeply about emotional and mental health, and that will shape how we raise our child, checking in not just on how their day went, but how they actually feel. We want to teach them to name hard things, ask for help, and know that those conversations are always welcome.

This is also a home where no one takes themselves too seriously. Kumar once chose a genuinely stressful moment to make fun of the size of Jenna's big toe (high risk!). She laughed, remembered it, and later replied with a fake rattlesnake outside the front door. He ran, taking her with him on the way out, and yes, we have the video. A child growing up here will laugh a lot.

We’ll be honest with them about their story from the very beginning. They’ll always know they were adopted, and they’ll know their birth family loves them deeply, and that placing them for adoption was one of the hardest decisions a person can make, born entirely out of love. We’ll build a personal book of their adoption story so it’s always there for them, and we'll preserve every document. We want them to grow up knowing that adoption simply made their family bigger: they have a birth family who loves them, and they have us.

We’ll send regular letters and pictures as your child grows, and we hope to stay connected beyond that if you’d like, through texts, updates, and in-person visits, including traveling to you so they can connect with where part of their story comes from.

We hope we get to meet you.

Kumar & Jenna