Cory & Karen

Hello! We’re Cory & Karen. Thank you for taking the time to read our profile and to learn about our family. With the love and support of our family, we are ready to welcome a child into our home. We promise to provide unconditional love and support throughout our child’s lifetime. We hope to share our child’s adoption story with them including the love that you have for them.

In The Beginning

It was the summer of 2002 at an outdoor concert that would change our lives forever. Funny thing about it neither one of us really wanted to go to the concert we were just tagging along with some friends that had met earlier in the summer. Needless to say eight years later we’re happier than ever. Ironically we had practically grown up together going to the same middle and high school but never crossing paths until that summer. After talking for awhile we realized that we grew up and lived less than two miles apart had mutual friends, and a connection that was instantaneous. Our first date was supposed to be a walk around a local lake with Cory’s dog but he was going out of town the next day, and wasn’t sure that he would have time to get ready for the trip, and still make the walk without it seeming rushed.

Karen wasn’t going to let Cory get out of the first date that easily so before he left she asked for his help to go pick up a couple of Adirondack chairs for her back porch at Linens and Things, because they wouldn’t fit in the back of Karen’s car and Cory had access to his dad’s truck. We still have these chairs to this day! Afterwards we stopped for an ice cream and talked for several more hours before Cory had to get some sleep for his trip. As crazy as it sounds while Cory was in New York we talked everyday and after his second day there he told me that I was the girl he was going to marry.

After dating for a year and a half Cory popped the big question at our favorite bed and breakfast on the coast. He had this plan to take me out to one of our favorite restaurants for a nice dinner and then a walk down the river where he planned on asking me to marry him. I was not expecting this at all that night. I was calling some friends of ours that lived in Wilmington to meet us out for dinner and then go out for a night on the town, and the whole time Cory kept saying why don’t we meet up with our friends the next day let’s just have a date night alone. I wasn’t catching onto the subtle hints but finally conceded to just the two of us. So we get ready for dinner and decided to walk from the bed and breakfast which was right down the street, but to our surprise it was closed for renovations.

This really put Cory in a panic mode he was already so nervous just from the anticipation of the proposal, so we decided to go back to the suite and regroup. By this time Cory couldn’t wait any longer and got down on his knee and proposed right there in the room. Karen was so excited she actually forgot to say yes that is until Cory said “I’ll take your excitement as a yes”. Of course we called our parents and anyone else that would answer the phone.

After a nice dinner we did end up meeting our friends and celebrating the engagement. Even though it didn’t happen as planned it couldn’t have turned out any more perfect. A year later, we exchanged vows outside in a courtyard surrounded by our dearest friends and family and we celebrated our marriage with a weeklong honeymoon in the Bahamas.

About Us

Karen was born in North Carolina, when she was two her family moved to two more states before coming back home to North Carolina when she was ten. Karen has been teaching for eleven years and loves her job. Throughout her teaching career, she’s had the wonderful opportunity to work with all types of children ranging from academically gifted students, special needs children and children who have moved to the country that are transitioning to a new culture.

Her teaching schedule allows her to be home early in the afternoons and to have summers free to spend with our child. Once we bring our child home, she plans on staying home for a few months before returning to work. Outside of work, she enjoys cooking, traveling, attending college football games with family and friends and volunteering with a local animal rescue group, and most importantly spending time with our two wonderful nieces.

Cory was born just a few states away where he lived until he was ten before moving to North Carolina which he considers home. Cory is a sales representative for a large local company. The great thing about Cory’s job is that while it entails travel around the state he is at home every night for dinner, and works from home several times a week. Outside of work, Cory enjoys golfing, fishing, reading, volunteering at a local animal rescue, spending time with our nieces and during football season attending home football games where we tailgate with family and friends.

Karen about Cory: I am very blessed to have Cory in my life. He is truly my best friend. As a man, he carries himself with great respect and treats others with the same respect. He has a strong faith in God and understands the importance of family. Cory has a huge heart when it comes to helping others. One thing I can always count on is Cory’s ability to make me laugh. Cory is an amazing husband and I know he’ll be a wonderful father.

Cory about Karen: Blessed is the perfect way to describe my life with Karen, who’s not only a wonderful wife but truly my best friend and confidant. Karen’s ability to see the potential in all people especially her students is amazing. She has a knack to bring the best out in people and the best in me. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t feel like the most blessed man on Earth to have a wife like Karen. From the day we met there was never a doubt in my mind that one day she would make as wonderful a mother as she is a wife.

Our Family

Our parents still live within a mile of one another. Karen’s parents have been happily married for 38 years and Cory’s for 37 years. Their strong relationships and love for one another inspire us to be dedicated spouses and parents. Cory’s younger brother, his wife, and their two daughters also live nearby. Our nieces are 2 and 4 years old. Karen is an only child and feels very blessed that she now has a brother in law, sister in law, and two wonderful nieces. We love spending time with them and enjoy watching them grow up.

We feel very fortunate that our family is so close to us. Being so close allows us to easily meet up with our parents for dinner, attend our niece’s dance recitals, and celebrate holidays with everyone. Holidays are very big in our family and we always make a point to spend them together. Cory’s grandmother lives in Tennessee and Karen’s grandparents live in New Jersey. Her grandfather just celebrated his 99th birthday this year.

The amount of support that our family is sharing with us throughout the adoption process is enormous. Our parents literally jumped for joy over the news of our desire to adopt. Karen’s mom already calls herself a “grandma in training”. A child will definitely be welcomed with open arms by our entire family.

Fun Times

We consider ourselves fun, outgoing people who love new adventures. We love traveling and weekend getaways. Some of our favorite trips include Memphis, San Francisco, Chicago and San Juan Puerto Rico. We also enjoyed celebrating our most recent anniversary at a rustic cabin in the beautiful mountains. We have several close friends that we have known since childhood, high school or college that live close enough that we can spend weekends with at the beach, lake or mountains several times a year. Our friends are an extension of our family and a very important part of our lives. They are all very supportive of our plan to adopt a child.

We both love college football and have season tickets to Cory’s Alma matter and love meeting up with our friends and family to tailgate before the games.

We also spend several weekends each month volunteering with a local animal rescue. Our responsibilities include assisting with fundraising events, babysitting puppies when their foster parents are on vacation, and helping out with their weekend animal adoption fairs. We especially love the free puppy kisses.

Our Home

We live in a wonderful 3 bedroom 2 bath brick ranch with a large fenced in back yard that we have been in for five years. Our home is located on a cul-de-sac in a very safe, child friendly community. We have wonderful neighbors who we cook out with, watch fireworks, celebrate the kid’s birthdays and just enjoy spending time with. We have two large common areas with walking trails, fishing ponds and large areas that the neighborhood kids play baseball and football in. The common areas are also used for Fourth of July celebrations and national Family Night Out celebrations. We have a nice mixture of families in the neighborhood with kids ranging from newborns to high school aged. There is also a community pool and tennis club available.

We are animal lovers. In addition to the many animals that we help at our local animal rescue, we have a few of our own. We have two cats, Cole who was Cory’s grandmothers cat that we took in after her passing and Daphne who we rescued shortly after we got married. They were our first “babies”. We got our dog, Jake, for our first wedding anniversary. He is a 5 year old brindle boxer who brings great joy to our lives. Jake goes everywhere with us, he loves to take rides with us anywhere and going to visit his best friend Duncan who is Cory’s dads chocolate lab. Jake loves our nieces and will let them crawl all over him when they come to visit.

About Adoption

Ever since we met we knew we wanted children. It was never a matter of “if” we would have children; it was just a matter of “when” we would have children. Karen had a large uterine fibroid removed four years ago with no complications and after a speedy recovery we were given the ok from the doctor to start trying to have children. We started immediately with hope that it would not take long to have a successful pregnancy. After a year of trying, Karen’s doctor suggested we seek the help of a fertility specialist. After several rounds of fertility medicine and procedures we were pregnant, that was one of the best days of our lives, we were walking on cloud nine. For the first six weeks of the pregnancy everything was going smoothly, then at week seven we lost the baby. After trying for four years, enduring several rounds of fertility procedures, and then finally having this dream of a child given to us and then taken away, we were heartbroken. After several months of praying and healing from the loss of the pregnancy we felt that God was leading us to adoption. We finally realized through all of our emotional roller coasters over the past four years that our child did not have to come from us to be meant for us.

After meeting with A Child’s Hope, there was no doubt that this was the right decision for us and our family. When we shared the news of adoption with our family and friends, we were overwhelmed with support and excitement with our decision.

We are committed to providing the best life possible for our child and are honored to be considered by you.  We want to thank you for being so selfless. The decision that you are making to provide a wonderful, loving life for your child is brave, honorable and takes tremendous strength. We will continue to pray for you and the health of your baby during this time.

If you’d like to learn more about this family contact us by either calling our birthmother hotline operator at 1-877-890-4673 (HOPE) or by e-mailing us.