Home

Welcome to the adoption fundraising site for Ryan & Rachel Zusy. They are two incredible teachers with hearts of gold. We hope that our friends, family, and perhaps strangers alike will help these two raise enough money to adopt a baby.

They want to continue their mission of helping children in need, which led both of them to teaching in the first place. To prepare for their family, they have been saving up for the costs of adoption, which can be upwards of about $20,000 and have successfully raised about half the needed funds.

Our Story

Rachel and Ryan met in 2008 and quickly fell in love.  After dating for several months they moved in together in the house that Ryan had bought.  After dating and living together for several years Ryan asked Rachel to marry him in the fall of 2012 right in the middle of Rachel’s student teaching.  Ryan and Rachel got married in June of 2014 on literaly the hottest day of that year and have been together since.

Infertility

Once Ryan and Rachel were married they decided that they wouldn’t do anything to prevent pregnancy, if it happened then it happened.  After about a year of being married they started to be more proactive in getting pregnant by tracking ovulation and other common methods.  After about another year of no success they sought professional help.  

At that time it was determined that Rachel did have some ovulation abnormalities but did produce viable eggs.  It was also determined at that time that due to medical conditions Rachel had, carrying a baby to full term might be difficult but still possible. They then decided to try two different hormone therapies to help increase their chances of successful fertilization, unfortunately these did not help.

The next step in the process was to determine if Ryan was part of the issue.  After consulting a urologist it was determined that Ryan had a low sperm count, those he did have were healthy though.  They decided to have a procedure to hopefully increase Ryan’s count, unfortunately his sperm count decreased after the procedure.

Why Adoption

Because of Ryan’s low sperm count and Rachel’s potential difficulty in carrying a baby to full term the only remotely possible way for them to have their own child would be to use a surrogate.  They decided that with the low success rate and incredibly high cost this was not what they wanted to do.  At that time they decided that adoption was what they wanted to do.

Adoption appealed to Ryan and Rachel because they wanted to help children that needed help.  As many of you know they are both teachers, helping children is what they do everyday, it’s part of who they are.  What they also want to do is help out locally which is why they have decided to adopt domestically in the greater Cleveland area through Catholic Charities.  

Why are they asking for money

Adoption is a costly path to parenthood.  Ryan and Rachel have been aggressively saving for over a year and have saved about half of what is needed on their own.  Their current plan for saving would put them on track for having enough saved in close to two more years from now.  

Due to many factors such as COVID-19 the need for adoptive parents has greatly increased over the past few months.  The interview and home-study process have also been fast-tracked in order to help find homes for the many children that need them.  This is good news for Ryan and Rachel because they will potentially be able to adopt much sooner than planned.  The downside to all of this though is that they need the funds to finalize the adoption process much sooner than they had thought, this is why they are asking for your help.