Meet the Families

About Us

Our relationship is built on love, friendship, mutual respect, and honesty. We’ve been best friends for almost a decade; we first met at work and became close after discovering we both loved hiking, exploring new places, working on cars, and a good cup of coffee. We’ll be celebrating 4 years of marriage soon and are super excited about our future together.

Creating a family through adoption has always been close to our hearts. Janice was adopted from South Korea as a baby and grew up in an interracial family. As an adoptee, she knows what it’s like to grow up in a family created by adoption – the amazing parts, the complicated parts, and the hard parts. Through her, Goran has learned a lot about adoption over the years.

We value our time with each other, our families, and close friends the most. On a typical weekend, you can find us sharing coffee in the morning, reading at home, hiking some of the amazing trails near us or going to museums, and spending time with our friends.

We believe our relationship has stood the test of time because of our shared values of kindness, honesty, integrity and being open-minded about each other and the world. We’ve had many amazing adventures together and are ready and excited to welcome a child to our hearts and lives.

About Janice:

I grew up in northern California before moving to the east coast for college and stayed after finding a career I loved and a community of friends that quickly made it my home. Through a lot of hard work, some very kind people in my life, and some luck, I’m the first woman in my family to obtain a college degree and the first person in my family to obtain an advanced degree.

At heart, I’m probably what you’d call a nerd; I studied engineering and computer science, and love applying scientific principles to create new things and solve tough problems. As a parent, I hope this helps me be pragmatic, calm under pressure, and focused on putting a child’s needs first.

Like many people, I’ve faced some challenges in life. My mother died when I was a teenager after a long illness. From a young age, I carried a lot of adult responsibilities such as working to contribute to the family income, running a household, and childcare. It’s taught me how to persevere, make difficult choices, and look for the positives in any situation.

As an interracial adoptee, it’s always been normal for me to have a family that was created through adoption instead of biology. My parents kept me close to my roots though Korean food, customs, and activities like taekwondo, a Korean martial art. As parents, we’d actively take similar steps to keep a child connected with their roots and community.

• Interests: Hiking, Olympic weightlifting, learning how to make new types of food, and reading sci-fi books
• Favorite foods: French pastries, most Asian food but especially Vietnamese summer rolls and Korean kimbap
• Fun facts: A long time ago, I was a national taekwondo champion and I once qualified for Olympic team trials. Recently, I learned how to solve a Rubik’s cube.
• Work: I lead a small but mighty team working on cybersecurity and cloud computing systems for the federal government. I’m lucky to primarily work from home and at a family-friendly job that prioritizes balance between work and family.

What Goran says about Janice 

This will sound like a cliché, but Janice is truly my other half, where I am spontaneous and extroverted she is a planner and a bit more introverted, we complete and complement each other. She is an extremely compassionate individual who always goes out of her way to help anyone if she sees that they are struggling.

Every time we are around our friends’ kids she finds a way to connect with them and in no time becomes a favorite “Auntie Janice”. I know she will be a wonderful mother and will teach a child how to be kind and confident in being themselves while keeping an open mind and thinking critically about the world around them.

About Goran 

I grew up in ex-Yugoslavia and left as a teenager due to civil war during the 90s. For years, I saw my parents protest the wars and violence. Their example is where I learned the importance of speaking out against injustice and the value of strong family bonds. Even though they couldn’t leave, they made sure that I could, and I am forever grateful for the sacrifices they made to ensure my safety and ability to build a good future. My journey has taken me from Eastern Europe to the US, to Spain, and back to the US where I’ve met amazing friends and built a great life.

I’m a bit of a goofball – I like to make people laugh and be surrounded with positive energy. When I am not researching ways to take my coffee game to the next level, I can be found tinkering with technology and looking for ways to make our everyday life more enjoyable by automating most of our regular chores.

• Interests: Biking, Olympic weightlifting, and coffee making
• Favorite foods: My top foods right now are empanadas, burgers from Shake Shack, and the chocolate walnut cookies my mom makes.
• Fun facts: I am fluent speaker of Serbo-Croatian, Spanish and of course English. For many years, I’ve worked in a civil engineering laboratory focused on improving building resiliency to earthquakes and other natural disasters.
• Work: I work for an international data analytics software company, where I design and build cloud computing systems with co-workers from all over the world. One of the best perks of my job is that it’s fully remote so I work from home and have a very flexible schedule.

Our Community: Family 

Community is very important to us, and our closest friends and family come from all over the world. They’re so excited for us to grow our family and share our many traditions like summer cookouts, multi-generation Thanksgiving celebrations, and watching the Vienna symphony orchestra on New Years’ morning. And even though Goran’s parents live abroad, they have big plans on how to welcome and love a grandchild. Janice’s brother lives in Korea and recently got engaged to an amazing woman who we love.

Our Community: Friends

Our friends, who we also consider to be family, are a large and diverse group, so we always have many different life experiences and perspectives to talk about. Janice completed her graduate degree in the Boston area so we have close friends and ties to Massachusetts, and usually visit once or twice a year.

We are active in our community through volunteering, supporting causes that are important to us, and staying up-to-date on current issues. Together, we have many people to draw on for support, and with whom to share our different experiences and lives.