Our honeymoon began with us stuck at the airport at 4 AM with all flights canceled because of a massive global Microsoft outage. With our journey to Hawaii delayed, we decided to make the most of our day and traverse the exotic concrete land of Chicago, Illinois on a quest to stare at a gigantic, metal bean. So was not impressed.
Luckily, that day we also traveled to Devon Avenue where Matt tried delicious momos (Nepali dumplings) for the first time, strolled along Lake Michigan, and had surprisingly good margaritas at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville. The next day we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves upgraded to first class for our flight to Hawaii. We think it is important to make the best of unexpected situations and have found that no matter where we are, as long as we are together, we are happy.
Our relationship is built on trust, mutual respect, honest communication, patience, and lots of fun and laughter. We connected via Hinge in July 2022 and chatted online for about a month. So was only able to find one image of Matt when she was online-stalking him: a photo of Matt in college wearing a sailor hat. When she saw the photo, she quickly texted him “Ahoy, Popeye!” But Matt just ran with it and on their first date, not only did he show up with a sailor hat (and a corncob pipe accessory), but he had a matching sailor hat for So! We talked for two hours straight on that first date.
Matt met Leia, So’s dog (now OUR dog!) on our second date. Leia is a rescue pup and sometimes she is afraid of strangers, but So was delighted to see that Leia instantly felt comfortable and safe around Matt. We began seeing each other twice a week. So quickly fell in love with Matt’s generous, kind, and passionate personality. Matt was immediately drawn to So’s exuberance, the love she has for others, and her beautiful nature inside and out. We moved in together after dating for six months and were engaged by May 2023. It sounds corny, but when you know: you know!
We had a hectic but incredibly fun four-day long wedding celebration in Massachusetts in June 2024. Leia, of course, was our Best Dog of Honor. Our wedding events combined marriage traditions from our respective cultures and we were overjoyed that Matt’s family from Flint as well as many of So’s family members from India, the UK, France, and Australia were able to join us.
During the school year, we tend to have most of our leisure at home in Kalamazoo. We have small gatherings with friends, go to movies, musicals, and Renaissance fairs, and spend evenings relaxing in our home. When we first started dating, we immediately bonded over our shared love of Lord of the Rings, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Parks and Recreation, and most importantly: Star Wars. When time permits, So can be found reading novels, immersed in the Star Wars universe (she did name our dog after Princess Leia…), and questing through Disney Dreamlight Valley on our Nintendo Switch. Matt likes to play his saxophone and guitar, solve chess and word puzzles, perform (usually) tasty kitchen experiments, and sneak in the occasional video game (his favorite is The Legend of Zelda).
During the holidays we like to travel. Each year, we have a tropical beach vacation involving snorkeling with So’s parents and go on a multi-day camping trip with our best friends, Morgan and Christopher. When traveling in the USA, we take Leia with us almost everywhere, and she has possibly even more fun than we do.
We also have had the opportunities to visit Mexico, Canada, and India together. Our trip to India was particularly special because we got to spend time with So’s extended family and Matt got to learn more about So’s South Asian heritage and culture.
Gender: Any Gender, including an Ambiguous or Transitioning Gender Child
Ethnicities: Any Race and Ethnicity
Age: Newborn to 6 Months
Total of: 1 to 2 Children or 2 Siblings
We Live In: Kalamazoo
Our Faith: Open to All Religions
Pets: Dog(s)
Kids Already: No Children Now
Child Care Plan: Licensed Child Care Home Stay-at-Home Parent
Our families and friends are immensely important to us. Matt is the eldest of three brothers. His mother and his brothers and their families all live less than 45 minutes away. Matt sees his mother at least every other week and we try to see his brothers and their families as much as possible. We are also very close to Matt’s aunts, uncles, and cousins in Flint and see them regularly for holidays and other family gatherings.
So is an only child and grew up with her parents and maternal grandmother in Massachusetts. We usually go to Massachusetts for Thanksgiving and at least a few weeks in the summer and her parents often visit us here in Kalamazoo. Most of So’s extended family live abroad (the majority of So’s relatives live in India), but we keep in touch via WhatsApp and email. We hope to take our children on trips to India every few years to spend time with So’s extended family.
We have several close friends in Kalamazoo who we regularly get together with for trivia competitions, board game or movie nights, outdoor hikes, and home-cooked meals. We have also maintained close relationships with multiple friends from our childhoods and our time in college and graduate school, and we make an effort to see these friends as often as we can.
We currently have three adorable nieces from Matt’s side of the family and many of our friends have young children (including So’s godson) and we adore getting to spend time with them. Our child will have many cousins and playmates!
We live in a tree-lined residential neighborhood known for its walkability and safety. Our neighborhood is a vibrant, active, and caring community. Many of our friends and colleagues live within walking distance of our home. Our neighborhood has a play street, three parks (including one with a “tot lot” for young children), and a community garden. The local neighborhood association hosts a porch music festival, potlucks, an ice cream social, a yard sale, and a children’s market where kids can sell their handmade works. While most of the residents of our neighborhood are white, there are also Black, Latinx, East Asian, and South Asian residents.
We live in a 3000-square foot home with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a finished basement, and a finished attic. Each room in our home has a fun theme. For instance, our kitchen has several pieces of artwork inspired by Lord of the Rings and one of our bathrooms is Star Wars-themed. We also have a small fenced-in backyard that is very shady during the hot summer months.
Beyond our neighborhood, Kzoo Parks, Kalamazoo Public Library, and the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts offer a number of different free programs for children. We look forward to taking our child to the Air Zoo Aerospace and Science Museum, the Kalamazoo Valley Museum, Binder Park Zoo, Story Place at the Kalamazoo Public Library (a community play space with toys in a room shaped like a castle!), the Kalamazoo Nature Center, the Lillian Anderson Arboretum, W.K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary, and musicals, plays, concerts, and shows at Miller Auditorium.
Education is at the center of our lives. While So is a scholar of the humanities (specifically: religion, film, theater, and literature), Matt’s academic career is rooted in science and he is passionate about mathematics and physics. Coming from such different fields, we value the importance of a broad and balanced education.
Socialization is very important so we plan to enroll our child in daycare a few days a week when they turn two. At the age of four, they will qualify for the Kalamazoo Public Schools Pre-kindergarten Early Education Program. Around 47% of the students at the public elementary school closest to our home are students of color. It is very important for us that our child attends a diverse school. We know that every child learns differently and that there are many forms of learning. We are prepared to help our child with their schoolwork at every stage of their lives in ways that work best for them.
As kids, we both benefited from multiple different kinds of learning opportunities outside of school such as dance, theater, and music classes and youth sports programs. We are committed to helping our child find their passions beyond the traditional classroom.
We are incredibly lucky to live in Kalamazoo, the first city in the USA to provide full scholarships to any college or university in Michigan for all graduates who receive their elementary and secondary schooling in the Kalamazoo Public Schools. If our child decides to attend college, their tuition will be completely covered.
As parents, one of our most important jobs is to help our child understand and embody ethical behavior. We believe that properly structured discipline will help our child understand society’s rules, develop self-control, and emotional regulation. We will provide this discipline by balancing both positive and negative reinforcement – rewarding good behaviors and correcting bad behaviors.
Some examples of positive reinforcement are getting a new book or toy when the child succeeds in their responsibilities, or extra opportunities like more play time at the park. Some examples of negative reinforcement are time-outs, confiscation, and loss of privileges. We strongly reject using violence (hitting, spanking, mouth-soaping, etc) as methods for discipline.
We know that as parents, the way we act will influence our child’s understanding of this world and what appropriate and upstanding behaviors are. We will promote healthy social behaviors by leading as examples, verbal explanations, and showing how to observe the behaviors of other people.
So’s mother was raised in a Protestant Brethren family and her father was raised in a non-Brahmin Hindu family and is now Atheist. So learned about Christianity from her maternal grandmother, Hindu traditions from her paternal grandmother, and Scientific Atheism from her father. So identifies as Agnostic. Matt was raised Catholic and is now Atheist. His mother still identifies as Catholic. His father was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), but Matt did not know this until recently. So has Catholics, Muslims, and Sikhs in her extended family.
We do not attend religious services often, but we do celebrate holidays associated with specific religious traditions at home or the homes of family members. Every Diwali, we invite friends over, light diyas (lamps), and cook South Asian food. We celebrate Christmas by decorating a Christmas tree and exchanging presents with friends and family. We spend Easter with Matt’s family which usually involves brunch and an easter egg hunt for our nieces.
We firmly believe that children should have the right to choose their own religion or no religion. We also believe it is deeply important for children to understand and respect different religions. So will teach our children about several different religious traditions including Hindu, Muslim Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Vodou, Confucian, Daoist, Shinto, and Indigenous American traditions.
I teach college courses on religious traditions in South Asia (including Hindu, Muslim, anti-caste, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Christian traditions) and religion and popular media like Bollywood, Star Wars, Disney, Marvel, and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
With my classes designed around popular, fun, and familiar media franchises, I teach my students about religions they are often unfamiliar with as well as critical social issues related to the study of religion including racism, misogyny, imperialism, cultural appropriation, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, Hindu nationalism, and Islamophobia. My students are such curious, bright, and thoughtful people and I am so grateful I get to teach them.
My research focuses on literary, cinematic, and television retellings of South Asian religious narratives and representations of South Asian religions in mainstream media. I am currently working on a book about Bollywood adaptations of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana epic narratives and I have written about popular American television shows including Stranger Things, The Office, New Girl, We Were Liars, and Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi.
Religion is all around us including our favorite feature films and television shows. I think it is immensely important to recognize the ways in which mainstream movies and shows depict different religious communities and religious traditions.
We plan to look after our child together at home until our child is at about two years old (this might change depending on the needs of our child). Matt gets 6 weeks of PTO for parental leave and I get 8 weeks PTO. We plan to utilize this PTO as soon as our child comes home. Matt works from home and his working hours are very flexible. I teach Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but am typically home on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I will also (hopefully!) be on sabbatical from July 2027 to August 2028 and will be home that entire year. But essentially, either Matt or I will be home every day for the foreseeable future! We do, however, think socialization is very important, so we plan for our child to attend daycare once they are about two years old. We hope to enroll our child at a home-based daycare that comes highly recommended from another couple we met through Greater Hopes.
I am a trained mathematician specialized in applied mathematics. My expertise is in differential equations, optimal control theory, and numerical simulation. I study how to construct mathematical models in rigorous, physically-grounded, and useful ways, and in turn about how to properly steer the course of those physical systems.
I apply these techniques to study diseases – for example, how a rapidly progressing cancer propagates in the human body and in turn how to design an optimal course of treatment.
As a child I got interested in computer programming because I wanted to make my own video games, and in the process, I discovered that I loved the programming itself; it offered complex and rewarding puzzles to solve and a way to create visually striking and engaging graphics.
In my career I get to combine all of the technical skills that I built throughout my life and put them to work on a daily basis. I am inspired when I see reports of my work being used to help cure rare diseases, especially those found in children, to help people live longer and better-quality lives.
I have a stable and flexible job which has excellent benefits including parental leave. When our child arrives, I will have 6 weeks of leave to dedicate to bonding, and then I can continue to care for our child as I work from home. When our child is old enough and ready, we will enroll them in a nearby home-based daycare to help them start strengthening their socialization skills as soon as possible.
I have mostly South Asian and some English heritage (my mother is Anglo-Indian from Karnataka in South India and my father is from Tamil Nadu in South India). My parents met in medical school in India and immigrated to the USA in the 1980s and are now American citizens. I was born and raised in Massachusetts.
As a child and teenager, I felt connected to my South Asian heritage through the delicious Indian food my mother cooked, the storybook retellings of Hindu narratives my paternal grandmother would send me from India, my classical Indian dance classes, watching Bollywood movies with my friends, the Diwali parties we would attend at the home of our family friends, and the regular trips my parents and I would make to India to visit my grandmothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
My parents and I would also celebrate Thanksgiving with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and all the typical side dishes, Christmas with a Christmas tree and presents, New Year’s Eve with a big party with our family friends, Easter with egg dying and egg hunts, and the Fourth of July with hot dogs, burgers, and tandoori chicken. My parents took me on trips all over the USA and I have fond memories of visits to San Diego, the Pocono Mountains, New York City, Washington DC, and Disney World.
My mother’s ancestors emigrated from Poland, Germany, and France in the 1920’s, and they settled in Flint, MI, the “Vehicle City,” to work in the young automotive industry. My mother was raised in a Catholic family, and we celebrated Lent, Easter, and Christmas by having parties, exchanging gifts, and having meals with cousins.
We also celebrated Thanksgiving, Halloween, birthdays, and bank holidays in similar fashion. My father (who passed away when I was a child) had some English ancestry and was a non-practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Growing up, my mother usually took me and my brothers on an annual road trip in the summer after school was out. We loved camping in places like Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Tetons, and the Badlands of South Dakota. We visited places all along the east coast like N.Y.C., Philadelphia, Gettysburg, VA, and learned about some of our country’s history. One summer we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and saw the Grand Ole Opry with my grandparents.
Thank you for taking the time to read our profile and learn more about us.
We want you to know that adoption is very close to our hearts because of its history and meaning in our family and community. We have cousins, friends, mentors, and students who are adopted or who grew their families through adoption. In fact, on our very first date we talked about building our family via adoption.
We are in awe of your strength and selflessness as you consider making an adoption plan. We also want to acknowledge the profound love you have for your child. We promise that if you choose us as your child’s parents, we will love them unconditionally and they will grow up knowing just how much you love them. We also promise that your culture and heritage will be an integral part of the child’s regular family life and they will be proud of who they are and where they come from.
We would be delighted and honored to meet you and learn more about you.
Warmly,
We envision our adoption experience as one built on mutual respect, honesty, and openness. We hope to have an ongoing relationship with you in which we spend time together at Greater Hopes picnics and other events and share updates and photos with you via written messages and texts.
We want to reiterate again that we promise that if you pick as parents, the child will always know how much you love them, your culture and heritage will be a key part of the child’s everyday life, and we will raise the child to be deeply proud of who they are and where they come from.
We envision our adoption experience as one built on mutual respect, honesty, and openness. We hope to have an ongoing relationship with you in which we spend time together at Greater Hopes picnics and other events and share updates and photos with you via written messages and texts.
We want to reiterate again that we promise that if you pick as parents, the child will always know how much you love them, your culture and heritage will be a key part of the child’s everyday life, and we will raise the child to be deeply proud of who they are and where they come from.
Just one more thing...We envision our adoption experience as one built on mutual respect, honesty, and openness. We hope to have an ongoing relationship with you in which we spend time together at Greater Hopes picnics and other events and share updates and photos with you via written messages and texts.
We want to reiterate again that we promise that if you pick as parents, the child will always know how much you love them, your culture and heritage will be a key part of the child’s everyday life, and we will raise the child to be deeply proud of who they are and where they come from.
