We currently have a son named Hudson and we love being parents! Hudson is an easy-going, energetic, engaging, friendly, happy, crazy toddler. Hudson is an active boy who likes to climb, jump, run (everywhere), go to the park and go on walks. He likes trucks, cars, reading books and watching movies. He loves superheroes (especially Spiderman!) His favorite food is macaroni and cheese (aka "monkey cheese") and favorite color is green.

However, we know our family is not yet complete. We have always discussed having children biologically and/or adopting to build our family from the beginning of our marriage. Lanier got pregnant two years after we were married and had a miscarriage. We then took some time to mourn that loss and go on some adventures we knew we might not be able to do after having children. We then became pregnant in November of 2018 and Lanier had a wonderful pregnancy up until the very end. At 37 weeks Lanier was diagnosed with pregnancy-induced high blood pressure, which led to induction to prevent preeclampsia. Due to these past complications, we turned to adoption to complete our family, and we are so excited to move forward on the path to adopting a child!

We live downtown in the beautiful city of Raleigh, North Carolina. Our location is so perfect for the activities that we love to do. We are both very active and love running around the city or going for walks as a family. Many of these walks are to our favorite parks that Hudson loves to play in.

We love spending time with our friends and family. Locally, we frequently will meet up with Lanier's family who live nearby or our friends and their families in some of the restaurants and breweries around town.

Recently, we purchased a condo in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, so we usually spend a weekend a month there, especially now that our working locations are a bit more flexible. Lanier's parents and our friends will usually join us for the weekend which is always fun.

Much of Ben's family lives in Georgia where he grew up. Ben's mom (aka GiGi) and brother, Nate, live just outside of Atlanta and we love to come down and visit a few times a year. In addition to Georgia family, we have many friends in the Atlanta area as well that we spend time with as well.

Prior to the pandemic we also travelled considerably more, and hopefully will again soon. We have friends that live in a variety of places across the U.S., and have friends that live in Dublin, Ireland that we love to go visit.

Lanier's strengths are that she is emotionally, physically, and mentally strong and resilient. Lanier is hard-working, organized, empathetic, and extremely loyal. She is a great leader and teammate. She can calmly solve problems and make compromises. She notices other's needs and helps them to meet their goals.

Ben's strengths are being even keeled and not easily rattled. Ben is a hard worker and easygoing. He is extremely optimistic and a positive influence to anyone's life. Ben always leads with his heart. Ben can talk to anyone he meets and will immediately make friends. Ben is an enthusiastic cook, father, friend and husband. Ben is a super-fast runner.

Together we are great friends and a great team through some of our oppositions. We are both generous, inquisitive, and as a couple we like to take on new challenges. We are a social couple who get along with everyone. We work positively through disagreements, encouraging one another's goals and emotional growth.

We live in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina in a diverse and historic neighborhood.

Our house was built in 1920 and has been remodeled with a really cool rooftop deck that overlooks the city. We have a nice back yard with a garden where we plant vegetables and herbs and a patio that we hang out on frequently. Our house is a three-bedroom, two-bath home with a sun room.

We live within walking distance of four parks and the closest park was recently renovated and has a huge state of the art playground and a splash pad.

We live close to downtown where we love to enjoy all the local restaurants, breweries, festivals and concerts. There is a new food hall just two blocks away that we probably spend way too much time at, but it is perfect for sitting on the patio and is super kid-friendly.

One thing we love about our neighborhood is the diversity and feeling of community. We are super close to all of our neighbors, many of which have children. One of our neighbors has a pool and we have frequent neighborhood pool days.

We are both the oldest of two children, and both have brothers.

Lanier's mother, father, and brother all live nearby in Raleigh. Lanier's parents help with babysitting Hudson often and look forward to having another grandchild in the future. Both of Lanier's parents worked for North Carolina State University, her mom retired a few years ago and her dad still works there. We get together as a family often for Sunday dinners or we will all spend a weekend at our condo in Ocean Isle.

Ben's mom and brother's family live in the Atlanta, Georgia area where Ben grew up, and his dad lives in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. We frequently go down to Georgia to visit Ben's family and our mutual friends. Ben's dad comes up to visit a few times a year.

When we are in Georgia we often stay at Ben's brother's house, our nephews are three and one and the boys all have a great time playing together. They all love spending time with Hudson and are looking forward to spending time with his future sibling! This last Christmas was pure chaos with all the boys running around making dinosaur "roars" while taking turns on the slide we set up in the middle of the living room.

Thank you so much for taking the time to get to know us. We have so much respect for the loving choice you are considering making. We are super excited for our family to grow and excited for you to become a part of our adoption journey.

First, we want to tell you a little about our relationship. We met back in 2013 playing in a kickball league and quickly became friends. After being friends for a few months and a lot of courting from Ben, Lanier agreed to finally go on a date and the rest was history. We have a solid relationship and marriage since our relationship was built on a foundation based on friendship. We got engaged in 2015 and married soon after in our favorite place of Athens, Georgia (where we both attended college at separate times). We have been happily married for six years now and have a son Hudson that was born in 2019.

As a couple, and now a family, we love to travel and specifically spend time at the beach. We love being active and outside. Ben loves to run and bike and Lanier loves to go on long walks, take yoga, dance and strength classes. We moved to downtown Raleigh to make sure we were living in a diverse community and could do many things within walking distance such as going to parks, festivals and restaurants. We hope you also feel that those experiences will be valuable to your child.

When we decided to start a family we always dreamed of having multiple children since we both grew up with siblings and knew that was very important to us. We have always known that adoption was an option for us and a very special way to add to our family. Adoption is constantly surrounding our family. Our best friends adopted twin girls, several of our neighbors have adopted, we have a ton of friends that are adult adoptees and Lanier's mom just recently found out through DNA and research that she has a sister that was placed for adoption.

During our process of learning more about adoption through education and our friend's experiences, we believe it is important for all children to know where they come from and that they have a relationship with their biological family. We are open to sharing pictures, emails, phone calls and letters to the birth parents. Through these letters and pictures we hope to develop a stronger relationship with you with the potential for more growth and connection as the child grows.

We can't begin to know what you are going through and how you are feeling in making this challenging decision to place your child with us. We aim to be supportive and provide a safe, fun and loving home for your child. We will always be open and honest with your child in regards to adoption and will make sure your child knows how much their mother loves them. We promise to give them every advantage in life that we possibly can.

Again, thank you for considering us and whatever you decide, we are grateful that you are considering us to be adoptive parents for your child.

Ben & Lanier