Nina & Tom

We’re Nina from France and Tom from Belgium, and we’ve called New York home for the last four years. Our story as a couple started back in 2015 right here in the city, where we were both studying for a year thanks to the US Fulbright Scholarship. After building our careers abroad and successfully navigating three years of long-distance, we’ve been happily reunited in New York since 2020.

We fell in love over laughter, joint adventures, and a mutual passion for food, but above all, our love for family, community, and our shared commitment for social and environmental justice that we strive to contribute to through our actions, both professionally and in private.

We believe we make a great team. Nina is kindhearted and adventurous, always bringing friends together and planning new discoveries, while Tom is patient and reliable, always ready to offer practical help and often found in the comfort of the local coffee shop. Most of all, we laugh a whole lot and are supportive of each other’s small and big dreams.

We’re truly grateful for, and aware of, the luck we’ve experienced in life and love. We’re excited to share all of this with a child, accompanying them through life and rediscovering the world through their eyes.

About Nina

About: Nina is 33 years old and has been working at the United Nations for more than seven years, including one year in Niger and two years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She currently works for the United Nations Office of Rule of Law, focusing on improving access to essential justice services and providing justice for victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including crimes of sexual violence.

Hobbies: Nina loves spending time with her friends, baking, traveling, exploring the city and capturing moments with her camera. She is also actively learning Spanish with a professor based in Guatemala.

Fun Facts: In addition to her job at the UN, Nina is currently preparing for the French pastry diploma. Her family and friends say she should open a bakery! As a humanitarian worker, Nina lived in Cambodia, Niger, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During her time in the DRC, Tom and Nina climbed Mount Nyiragongo, which has the world’s largest lava lake. It was an incredible experience! Last but not least, Nina’s mum’s surname is “Poubelle”, which means garbage bin in English. This is because we are descendants of the man who invented the garbage bin in France.

About Tom

About: Tom is 37 years old. He is a professor at Columbia University and supports several organizations working on energy and climate policies that can create economic opportunities and address social inequalities. He has worked in several countries but especially in India and the Middle East.

Hobbies: Tom likes to read, write, and paint, and spend time near or in water. He also plays and follows several sports such as soccer, tennis, and skiing. He likes both yoga and chess, even if he’s the first to laugh at his own incompetence for both.

Fun Facts: Tom comes from a village in rural Belgium. He grew up eating fries as a meal twice a week, and got on the radio as a 7-year old to explain why his football team lost 24-0 in 60 minutes. His family owned a brewery, where they hid a British pilot who crashed nearby during World War 2. They remained in touch for several decades after the war.

Our Lives

We’re fortunate to both have jobs that we love and that offer us some flexibility. We work twice a week from home, allowing us to have lunches together and spend more time as a family. We enjoy being together, whether it’s relaxing at home or going on adventures.

Friday nights are our special date nights, and Saturday mornings are for farmers markets and a delicious homemade breakfast prepared by Nina. Our home often turns into a bakery, and our friends and neighbors look forward to trying Nina’s new bakes. We love meeting up with friends, going on walks and hikes, enjoying public pools in summer, and simply making the most of NYC. We’re passionate about traveling and had the chance to explore many parts of the world together.

We live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where we’ve built a family of friends from all over the world who are already excited to become honorary aunts and uncles.

Our Family

We’re very close to our families in France and Belgium and are so grateful for their constant support. We visit them at least twice a year, and they visit us too. Right now, Nina’s cousin Alice is staying with us for 7 weeks to improve her English. We also have frequent phone calls and chats on our family WhatsApp groups where we exchange lots of photos.

When we’re with Tom’s family, it’s always cozy. We play card games by the fire, help out with the animals in the garden, and enjoy fries, smoothies or waffles. With Nina’s family, it’s long and lively chats around a big table (about 20 people!) filled with delicious food. We’re excited to bring our child to these family gatherings, whether it’s Christmas in Normandy, New Years and fireworks at the seaside in Belgium, or summer get-togethers in the South of France.

Our families span over four generations, from Nina’s youngest nephew to grandparents in their 90s, sharing plenty of love and stories.

Final Thoughts

We are truly humbled by the opportunity to love and support a child through every moment in life, and we are forever grateful for the chance you might be giving us. We promise to provide your child with a loving and stable home and hope to give you peace of mind knowing that we will love your child unconditionally, and so will our respective families.

-Nina & Tom