Hubby is feeling better, but I woke up feeling like I was going to throw up. So, we are rearranging our days. Today we will work on our online profile (we're done with it, but I want to re-read and maybe add some things), hubby will also do his homework today. Tomorrow we will go for a walk on a really nice trail we found driving around a few weeks ago and on Monday morning we will go to France. We would go to France tomorrow, but around here everything is closed on Sundays, so we think France might be the same way? It will only be a two hour drive where we are planning to go, so not bad, and we won't have to worry about our little monkey boy.
Today's task is a stressful one. Writing the birth parent letter is difficult. We don't know what we should put in it other than what the agency suggests. But we want to add something to make it us, not just a letter. So far, this is what we have included.
- how we met
- what we each like to do and what we like to do together
- what our jobs are
- who our dog is
- what our school plans are
- our christian beliefs
- infertility, adoption, and my blood restriction disease
- my thoughts of Nick
- Nick's thoughts of me
- our home and future home
- our plans as parents
I want to talk about discipline in their also in case a birth parent wonders, it would be in the letter. I think sometimes birth parents wonder how their child would be disciplined. I was also thinking of adding a paragraph about the nursery since it's already finished. But the letter is already a page and half, which is the max for the agency...ugh. Then I think, if we included the nursery in the letter, would they be turned off by us because we are so ready to be parents that we already have the nursery finished? If I do the nursery paragraph, should I include a picture of it?
Did you do an online profile and a photobook? If so, were they the same or different?
What would you guys suggest?
Have a great day!
We didn't ever mention discipline in our profile, and the only birth parent that ever asked us about it was Leah's birth father when we first met him. I think that topic can wait until you meet.
ReplyDeleteAlthough some waiting families don't prepare a nursery ahead of time (I didn't for our first child), I know others do. I've seen profiles with photos of a waiting nursery, and I don't think it would be seen as odd. From my experience birth parents like to picture where their baby will be sleeping. You can just briefly mention the nursery's theme and that it is ready and waiting. Include a picture if there is room.
I never did an online profile. I thought about it and even wrote rough draft summaries of our profile book. But to make it short enough I cut out all the good parts, and it seemed our profile sounded like all the others. We almost posted one after waiting close to two years for our second adoption. A friend who had her profile online with our agency for close to two years said that it hadn't helped them. So I never did it. I think I may have with our last adoption if the wait had been longer.
We didn't mention discipline either in our letters. However, our social worker did ask us during our homestudy so it was in all of that paperwork.
ReplyDeleteOur agency does the profile books and you can also submit a letter and 3 pictures to be added to their website. We did both. The online letter and pictures gave us exposure to people not in our state; it was basically the same letter as in our book but only had 3 pictures. Our profile book had a page and a half letter and then 10 pages of pictures--we kept the writing short on those pages mainly just highlighting who was in it and where we were.
Thanks ladies. We decided to leave out the discipline from the letters as it is in the home study and they can ask us at a meeting if they'd like. We finished our photobook back in December thinking we were going to be approved in mid-January. We didn't put the letter all together, it's spaced out throughout the 20 pages. I think for the most part, our online profile will be very similar to what is in the book.
ReplyDelete