Hi there! We are Marcylen and Marcia. We are thankful you are taking a moment to get to know us and considering us future parents. 

Our story is unusual; a girl from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil fell in love with a military brat! We first met in graduate school through mutual friends and were friends for a year before we started dating. In the fall of 1999, we spent more time together, sparks flew and we became inseparable. We know it sounds cliche, but we knew right then and there that we were meant to spend our lives together.

After dating for five months, we got engaged and were married in 2001. We had beautiful ceremonies in both the US and in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (a week apart!) to share our special day with all the family in both places. Marcylen had the opportunity to meet Marcia’s entire family in Brazil all at once.

We spent a lot of time together enjoying the pool at our community, taking long walks around the neighborhood, and getting to know the folks at the new church we had recently joined. About four years into our marriage, we started planning to grow our family. We tried on our own for about a year and then started seeking fertility help. Our journey through infertility was long, hard and filled with heartaches. Once we exhausted all our options, we proceeded to seek to grow our family through foster care. Our foster children were ultimately reunified with their biological family and though we were happy for the children, we were also heartbroken and devastated. Our hearts ache deeply with the desire to grow our family and we know that adoption is the perfect way to do so.