Welcome to our blog! Intro and FAQ

Many of our friends and family have been curious about our upcoming adoption, and we thought this site would be a great way to keep you updated with all of our news and prayer requests.

This first post will be pretty long, to answer lots of the questions we've gotten about our adoption. We'll also be posting a timeline and pictures of our preparations as things move forward. (No, we don't have a picture of the baby yet!)

THE HAMERSMA ADOPTION F.A.Q. (Frequently Asked Questions)

1. Why are you guys adopting a baby?

We have always planned to have children, and we have been praying that God would send a baby our way. While adoption is not the way we initially expected to build our family, we are really excited to see the way God’s plan is unfolding! There is a child out there who belongs with us, and though he or she is still unknown to us, this baby is part of our family. Since I (Sarah) am from a family where adoption isn’t unusual – in fact, my brother is adopted – we’ve seen firsthand the way that families are built on love and commitment, and not simply genetics. It’s becoming more and more clear what a privilege it is to start our family this way!

2. Why are you adopting a baby from Russia?

There are an overabundance of American couples who want to adopt children – far beyond the number of babies given up for adoption each year in the U.S. (this is partly due to the ~ 1,000,000 pregnancies terminated every year here). However, when one looks overseas, the story is exactly the opposite. I found a statistic stating that only one in ten Russian orphans will ever be adopted. Similarly, there are thousands of children in China (mostly girls), Guatemala (mostly boys), Korea, and other countries who are waiting for families. We prayed about this and decided on Russia – the timeline is fast (more on that later) and we could adopt a fairly young child. This is particularly true for the region of Russia we have chosen, which is part of Siberia. We also think it will be very interesting to travel to Russia and experience the culture our child has experienced for his or her early life.

3. How did you select an adoption agency?

We registered on the websites of several agencies to get more information. We became familiar with the basic process and costs, so just needed to figure out the next step. Then one day we received an email from a specific agency (we are asked not to discuss agencies by name on the web) describing the particular need for people to adopt children from parts of Siberia in Russia. The process seems to be more streamlined than some other regions, and the children tend to be healthier than in some other parts of Russia. We looked through the pictures in the email of children who’d recently been adopted, and (of course!) they were so adorable that we were sold! We also like the organization – while they are not officially a Christian organization, the ideas of “having faith” and “being faithful” are prominent in their mission. The online message board for parents like us is full of encouragement from the Bible as we all wind our way through this process. There are so many great Biblical examples of prayerful waiting…and that is what we are trying to do.

4. How old will the baby be?

Babies in Russia are not considered officially “orphans” until they have been in the orphanage system for at least 6 months. Combining this waiting period with bureaucracy, the youngest are usually 12-18 months when they are adopted. The most recent adoption I know of (by a couple working with the same agency as us, adopting from the same region) involves a baby who was 11 months old when the adoptive parents went to meet him, and will be 13-14 months old when they bring him home.

5. When do you go to Russia?

We will need to make two trips to Siberia. On the first trip, we will get to meet the baby that has been selected for us and (prayerfully!) confirm that we want to proceed with adoption of that baby. If for some reason we feel wrong about the particular match that has been made, we will have an opportunity to meet a different child. We will leave (after about a week) knowing the child we will adopt…but we don’t get to bring them home yet. At this point, the adoption enters deeper into the legal system and we wait for a court date, hopefully within one-two months, at which time we will go back and legally adopt our baby in Russia and stay for about two weeks. We hope to make the first trip in May or June, but it will depend upon the speed of bureaucracy in our region in dealing with our application. If we get to go by June, then we would expect to make our second trip by the end of the summer! (However, there are many places in which the process can be delayed so we are trying to be flexible.)

6. Have you been “accepted” to adopt a child?

Yes! We are not waiting to hear whether we will adopt, but simply which child we will adopt. We have been approved through background checks and a careful study of our home life (a 5-hour interview!).

7. Will your child be a U.S. citizen?

Yes. We will need to fill out some paperwork, but they will certainly be a U.S. citizen. Some Canadian friends have also told us that our baby will automatically be a citizen of Canada as well, since Rob is Canadian – hopefully that is the case, since it would great for our child to have dual citizenship. We still need to look into this.

8. Is there a chance you will come back with more than one child?

Not really – all of our documentation is set up for one child only. I am sure it will be hard to leave the rest of the children behind in the orphanage, but realistically it makes sense for us to start our family with just one child, particularly since it is our first child and neither of us plans to stay home full-time. Instead, we plan to stagger our work schedules and get some part-time help with child care in our home. I will be doing a lot of work from home in the Fall semester, as I do not have teaching responsibilities but instead will be focusing on research projects. I will still spend a few days each week at UF and plan to stay fully connected with my work as a professor there. I will be teaching again next Spring. We both love our jobs, and our colleagues have demonstrated a lot of support and flexibility already. We feel so blessed!


We're happy to answer other questions too! We'll be using this blog to keep you updated, answer questions, and reflect on this fascinating experience.