Hannah

Hello! I’m Hannah from Northern California. Thank you so much for reading my profile! This is the most exciting, thrilling, and nerve-wracking letter to write, because nothing could be more important or life-changing!

I want only the very best for you and this child, and would be so grateful to be considered as your adoptive family. And by ‘family’, I mean myself, and my awesome, adorable, spunky, sassy, huggy, dancey, lovey, smiley daughter, Bianca, who I adopted from birth in September 2013. Together we are great, but I feel like our family would be more complete with another child in our lives. Bianca would love nothing more than to have a sibling, and I strongly feel the pull of motherhood for another precious being in our lives.

Characteristics that define me: positive, honest, confident, outgoing and I give great hugs.

Five things that make me happy:
1. BEING A MOM!
2. BIG MEALS WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY
3. SEEING LIVE MUSIC
4. TRAVELING TO WILD NEW PLACES
5. MY LITTLE VINTAGE CONVERTIBLE

A Look At My Life: I always knew that I would have my own family, full of love, adventure, and travel, both to the city and country, to mountains and beaches, high culture and campfires–and that’s pretty much how we’ve been able to work it out! It’s also what I intend to provide for another child as well. Everything I do is for the safety, security, education, and success of our family. And it’s all a result of my strong work ethic and vision for a global citizen lifestyle that I believe will make for a wonderful family and excellent role model in life.

I invest in real estate so that I can be both a fully present, attentive, loving parent, and also work on my own terms, on days that are best for me and my family, and with hours shaped around our family activities. Please see our photos! We hike, swim, dance, ski, go on nature walks, explore the city, garden, go to movies, outdoor concerts, hang out with friends, have playdates with other little kids, go to the theater, visit the library at least once a week. We’re an active family for sure!

I believe in hands-on parenting, not just babysitters and nannies: I drop off and pick up Bianca at school every day and will do so with the child I adopt, and then afternoons are full of swim classes, ballet, playgrounds, aquariums, and museums. On weekends you’ll find us definitely sleeping in! But then, going out for a special waffle breakfast with friends, playing in the ocean at our house on the beach, or headed to the mountains when we’re at our home in Oregon.

I’M VERY INSPIRED by Janet Lansbury and her ideas about respectful parenting. Respect, trust, and acceptance are the core principals!

My Passions and Interests:

Vintage Cars: I own a 1968 VW Karmann Ghia convertible which I love, people are always stopping me on the street to tell me how much they like it. It makes me feel good that it makes so many people happy!

Philanthropy: I’m on the board of my family’s foundation so I attend a lot of charity events. I was raised with an emphasis on ‘giving back’, and try to support all kinds of things, like, modern dance, outdoor sculpture, and science museums. I hope my children will also be inspired to be generous!

Travel & Adventure: I spent a lot time as a rafting guide all over the world, so I love having a house on the beach plus an apartment on the Bay, which means that sailing, kayaking and splashing around in the water is only a short trip away!

I’m a travel nut. And I love to go places when there’s a special event going on. I was in Spain for New Year’s, where they eat grapes at midnight for good luck; then Berlin to see my favorite cellist perform live; then Barcelona for a special yoga conference where kids and families and everyone did yoga on the beach together! Travel and culture is a big part of my family and home life! There’s so much to learn out there!

Music & Art: There is a lot of music in my life and since I grew up playing the cello, music will be a big part of my home too. I always have season tickets to the San Francisco Symphony and Ballet. I love going to outdoor concerts with friends: Indie, jazz, bluegrass, folk, rock, ambient, electronica, classical—I love it all! I’d love for my kids to grow up seeing live music and maybe finding their own inner musician.

A Few Favorites:
• Snack – Ginger Cookies! Oops, I mean apples 
• Food – Mexican & Indian
• Recipe – Mom’s Lasagna
• Place to take Bianca – The Science Museum to watch divers in the aquarium feed the fish – she wants to be a scuba diver when she’s older!
• Holiday Tradition – Thanksgiving! It’s the best holiday. All my extended family gets together, we eat, we ply games, and we have fun just hanging out. There’s so much to be grateful for, I just love it!
• Childhood Activity – Ice Skating

My Background and Education: I was raised in the Washington DC area, so I’m a city kid by birth, but I spent my twenties as a whitewater rafting guide working all over the world: Nepal, Ecuador, New Zealand.

Nowadays, we split our family time between the properties I have in Bend, Oregon, and our building in downtown San Francisco just a few miles from where my Dad (also known as Popi) and his wife (Bellsie) live when they aren’t on their garlic and cattle farm in Australia. My Mom (Gramma) comes out from Maryland to visit us a few times a year when she isn’t volunteering as an English teacher in Thailand, Africa, or Costa Rica, and we go to visit my sister Jen and her family (husband Tad and sons Huxley and Ronan) in New York City for a week each summer. So we’re a pretty active family that LOVES to travel.

I have a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Columbia University in New York City, but I moved back to the west coast for the wonderful weather, San Francisco’s culture and activities, so that we can ride our bike along the Bay, eat out at great restaurants, go to the ballet, and of course playgrounds, playgrounds, playgrounds, ALL the time!

My Home and Community in San Francisco: My favorite things about my community:
• MY FRIENDS – it wouldn’t be a community without the people I care about the most!
• ACCEPTANCE – there are all kinds of people from all walks of life in San Francisco.
• HOME – I live by the ocean, and the Bay, and the desert- what a great variety!
• ACTIVITIES – San Francisco has something for everyone: parades, arts, great food, museums, and more!

Meet Future Big Sister Bianca: Bianca is no wall flower! She sings and dances around the house to songs from Frozen, she walks up to other kids and asks if they want to play, and somehow she loves vegetables!? She’s confident and smart.

Around our house we use the words ‘Try Again’, a lot so that she doesn’t learn to give up on anything. I was raised in the Montessori school method so I encourage her always to try to do things herself, and she delights in saying “I did it!”

She LOVES dogs and cats and bunnies, and I’m convinced she’ll be a veterinarian when she grows up, right after becoming a scuba diver which has been her obsession.

She has just the right enough princess dreams to be girly, plenty of sass to hold her own in the playground, and good manners and respect for all people that are reinforced strongly in our home.

Her week is a balance of learning and fun: preschool in the mornings, then ballet, swim, adventure camp, or nature art, plus down time for PBS screen time then helping me make dinner. She wants so very much to be an older sister and would be protective, loving, kind, doting, and probably more than a little bossy!

I Love My Family: My family, is a great big group that gets together for Thanksgivings in South Carolina, my Aunt and Uncle’s house at the beach, or at my sister’s place in NYC. With so many of us it’s always a fun madhouse of board games, golf, hikes, beach lounging and eating, always lots of eating!

MY FAMILY COULDN’T BE MORE SUPPORTIVE OF ME ADOPTING AGAIN. I’m grateful to have a mom who was patient, patient, and more patient! I hope to be the same kind of parent. My father was much more of the fun type who let me explore, roam and discover things on my own.

So I feel like I benefited from two great styles of parenting. Bianca wants so much to have a little brother or sister. Since she was a year and a half old, she has put her hand on my tummy and said “baby inside?” Which is sadly not possible. If there is a baby at a party, or on a playground, she will spend her time absorbed by that child; she is so gentle and kind with little ones.

Friends: I have friends from all over the place and visit them as much as I can. They run the whole gamut: male, female, with kids, without kids, travelers, lawyers, scientists, artists, bankers. They’re from all corners of the globe and country and are the types who can pick up the phone and be right back to where we left off.

MEET THE ‘ASMI GIRLS, as I like to call them. We went through a yoga teacher training together and now we talk, visit, and do yoga together at least once a month. My girlfriends, here and all over the world, are as much my family as my blood relatives.

In Closing: I’d like to respect whatever degree of contact you feel comfortable with, but for me, I’d love to really get to know you and have you know my daughter Bianca. If it feels right to you, I already consider you to be family! You have the knowledge and deep connection to this child that I could never have, and it would mean the world to me to have us create a plan that we’re both comfortable with. If you’d like more privacy I respect that too, but if you’d like to be more involved then please let’s talk about it and find something that works.

I want very much for you to feel as comfortable and supported as possible. Adoption is a wonderful thing that we talk about with affection and joy and the addition of another child to our home would be a very natural extension of our family.

I hope you’ll find something that resonates with you about my love of children, my background and education, flexible work schedule, and resources as reasons to consider placing your child in our home. I want nothing more than to dedicate my time and resources to raising a happy, healthy, well-loved child who has the benefit of an adoring adoptive sister who wants so badly to have a little brother or sister, and a very, very loving extended family.

I recognize that this can’t be an easy decision for you. I want you to feel that we are in this together; your trust and comfort with this process is extremely important to me, and I look forward to getting to know each other.

“Change favors the prepared mind” – Louis Pasteur