Sarah Hamrick, a current contestant on Clayton Echard’s season of The Bachelor, and one still vying for his heart on the upcoming aired episode recently discussed her adoption story.
Sarah joined Becca Kufrin on Bachelor Happy Hour, where Becca asked Sarah how it felt to open up to Clayton during their one-on-one about her adoption story.
How did being adopted shape Sarah Hamrick?
Becca started the conversation asking, “And I guess what I would love to know is how has that part about you shaped who you are as a woman today?”
Sarah answered Becca and said, “The reason I shared it is because it is relevant to who I am and how I view family and children, relationships, all the above. So it’s really important for me to share that. It was relevant because having been adopted and growing up in a family and a community that didn’t look like me, having always felt isolated and ostracized and not really seen or appreciated for who I was, was just a really familiar feeling.”
She went on to then associate that feeling of how she grew up and dealt with others, to then how it has carried over into her relationships.
How did her talk with Clayton go during the one-on-one?
Sarah declared, “And that’s also a feeling that’s kind of been consistent in my past relationships of just feeling, like, unseen and not appreciated. And so when I did feel very heard and understood by him that — it was just that much more special because it was something that I had always been lacking and I’ve never really had before.”
Sarah was referring to Clayton in that last bit, as she had let him in on her feelings of having grown up adopted and how it has affected her and helped her grow in life.
She then told Becca, “And especially after the first date with this person, being able to kind of open up about that stuff and share that with him, I think it says a lot that I felt safe to share that because it’s often something that you don’t want to just dump on someone when you first meet them.”
Not only did Sarah and Clayton get deep in their conversation that night, but prior to that, their day date was something Bachelor Nation had never seen before. They both had to undress down to their underwear (and bra for Sarah) and go through the city as they completed various challenges.
It sounded like Sarah appreciated Clayton’s response, words, and actions when Sarah spoke with him as to how and why having that conversation was important for her to have and significant for him to understand about her.
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8/7c on ABC.