Riley's Family

Tim and I met over 20 years ago volunteering at a camp for kids and adults with special needs in Orange County. We started a friendship, which 15 years later grew into something more. After getting married in front of over 100 of our campers from RAD Camp, we knew that we would start our family by adopting a child with special needs. In 2019, 1 month before our 1 year anniversary, we adopted our oldest son, Alexander, who has Prader Willi syndrome. Adoption is a beautiful thing to us and we have loved being Alexander’s parents these last 2+ years. We also knew we had a strong passion for the Down syndrome community and we wanted Alexander to have a brother, thus our journey with the National Down syndrome Adoption Network begin.

I remember seeing profiles and envisioning these babies becoming part of our family, only to get the email that it wasn’t our time. Like so many others, I kept asking Stephanie, “why?”. Although I already knew the answer; it wasn’t part of God’s plan yet. On November 18, we received an e-mail from Stephanie with the cutest little baby boy in a little yellow lion onesie. Tim was in another part of the house, but he came in where I was and said “that’s our son”. We knew it. 6 days later, we got the call asking us to come to Florida to pick up our baby boy. Riley Christopher joined our family 2 days later over Thanksgiving weekend. He’s so healthy and we are so blessed! He has a club foot and has been rocking a cast for the first few weeks of his life, but is otherwise strong as can be and continuing to show the world everything we already knew….Down syndrome rocks and he can do whatever he sets his mind to! We can’t wait to watch him and big brother grow and give them the world, which they absolutely deserve.