Dear Birthmother,

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and for the chance to share our story with you.  We are Timm and Rosa and we are truly honored that you are considering us as adoptive parents for your child. We respect your commitment to finding the best possible future for your child and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making this beautiful decision.  We are eager to become parents for the first time through the miracle of adoption, and we hope that you will find in us all the things that you seek for your child.

About Us
We have been together for seven years and married for almost five.  We met in graduate school in Syracuse, New York while Timm was getting his Ph.D. in Environmental Studies and Rosa was getting a Master’s degree in Public Administration. Timm came to Syracuse from Hamburg, Germany and Rosa came from Lima, Peru. We took just one class together during the last of the four semesters Rosa spent in Syracuse, but we never actually spoke with each other. We just exchanged smiles and greeted each other during the whole semester. We finally talked at a salsa party that Rosa organized with a group of friends and to which Timm and a friend showed up by pure chance. After two nights out with friends, we went on our first date and have been together since that day. We like to joke that we became engaged two days after our first date which happens to be not that far from the truth. Two days after our first date, Timm told Rosa he loved her and wanted her to be his wife.  Rosa was surprised not by the proposal but because she was feeling exactly the same. The following three years we lived primarily in Lima, Peru where Rosa was working for the government as she had planned before meeting Timm and where Timm was researching for his dissertation on reducing air pollution in Lima and learning Spanish. We got married in Lima in December 2002 in Rosa’s parents’ neighborhood church, which was built by German nuns (what a coincidence!) in the 1950s.  

Once Timm graduated he received a job offer in Washington, DC where we live now and where we have been living for the last four years. We fell in love with it immediately. We are just a few blocks away from Rock Creek Park, a beautiful National Park, as well as within walking distance to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo where one the main attractions are Giant Panda bears. Washington is such an interesting city. Aside from the Smithsonian Museums, the monuments and tourist landmarks like the Capitol and the White House, the city offers amazing cultural opportunities all year long such as concerts, musicals, plays and international festivals world that both children and adults can enjoy.  There are also a number of unique neighborhoods with a particular history and architecture which are great for weekend strolls and outside dining. Washington is a very diverse, family-friendly place that truly offers a very rich experience for a child to grow up in, with constant opportunities to be in contact with different people and cultures. Having lived here now for more than four years, we decided to make Washington our home and the place to raise our family.

Close friends of us also live in the neighborhood and they’ve become like family to us. They are from countries like Puerto Rico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Australia, and of course the US. We get together on weekends for brunch, playing board games, biking, hiking or going to the movies. Our favorite movie theater is a 50-minute walk and we regularly go walking there with friends or just by ourselves.

Where We Work
Rosa works as a technical officer for the Pan-American Health Organization office in Washington, DC. Her work focuses on tobacco control in the Americas, and involves the coordination of research on how to reduce the public health impacts of tobacco use in South and Central American countries. Timm is an environmental and natural resources economist. He works for a major U.S. environmental non-profit organization headquartered in DC. His work focuses on the economic benefits society obtains from the conservation of particular animal or plant species, ecosystems, or landscapes. Timm has also worked as a consultant on air quality control issues in Peru and Ecuador. We both love what we do and are fortunate to have wonderful jobs that allow us the flexibility to become stay-at-home parents. Whether it is Timm or Rosa, we are committed to one of us always being at home with our child during his or her early years.

Our Families
Rosa’s parents still live in Lima, Peru in the same house where she grew up and last July they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Rosa has two sisters, both who are married; one brother, who is not yet married; and five nieces and nephews. We are all very close and we feel lucky to be able to see each other frequently, despite the distance.We go to Lima together once a year either for Christmas or during the summer and Rosa usually goes one additional time by herself. They are all very excited about the prospect of a new addition to the family!

Timm’s parents and one of his brothers, Leif, live in Germany. We visit them every two years, and Timm’s mother and father come to visit us about once a year. Timm’s youngest brother, John, recently moved to Israel to attend Tel Aviv University. Timm’s father and brother successfully own and manage a warehousing and transport company originally founded by Timm’s great grandfather in the 1870’s. Timm’s family is also looking forward to the new addition to the family!

What we like to do in our spare time
In addition to traveling to visit our families, we love to travel to different places. We have traveled a lot within Peru, visiting small towns along the Peruvian coast including the area where Rosa’s parents are from and to several places in the Andes, including the Machu Picchu ruins. We have also traveled within Germany. Timm took Rosa on a road trip from northern Germany to the Swiss border in the south, stopping along the way to explore Germany’s beautiful wine-growing region.

We have also been to Argentina, Dominican Republic, the Bahamas,  and to Canada. In the US, we have traveled to Los Angeles, Colorado Springs, Chicago, North Carolina and Memphis.

Most of the time our weekends start with what we called our “quiet Friday evenings”, enjoying a movie at home while having dinner. We cherish this activity a lot. Saturdays start very slowly: we love to have a really long breakfast. It is a tradition Timm developed during his days as a student in Germany, and that Rosa loved from the very beginning of our lives together. Breakfast lasts for more than one hour. We come from different countries and cultures, and many times it has been during breakfast that we have shared childhood stories about how Timm liked to spend weekends at his grandparents’ house when he was a child and how Rosa, at the age of ten, used to travel by herself by plane to visit her married sister. Saturday evenings we usually meet with our closest friends for eating out, going to plays or movies or just playing games at one of our places. We also love to have friends over to our place, either for Peruvian food or for BBQ at the roof terrace.

On Sundays we like to take advantage of the city’s beautiful surroundings and go for hikes to Great Falls National Park, river rafting on the Shenandoah river, or biking through one of the many bike routes that exist in our neighborhood.

We hope that something about us has touched your heart as you consider the miracle of adoption.  Our hearts are open and we are ready to nurture your child and provide him or her with all of the wonderful opportunities the world has to offer.  Please know that we will be forever grateful for the opportunity to become your child’s adoptive parents. If you would like to speak with us about adopting your child or have any questions for us, please contact one of our Adoption Advisors at AdoptHelp by calling 1-800-637-7999 toll-free.