The second step, and arguably the most important step, of the domestic infant adoption process is your adoption profile, or what I like to call the storybook process. It comes after you have completed your home study and submitted all your paperwork. To check out our blog on the home study process, click here. Now, you might still be waiting to be officially home study approved, but while you wait it’s time for you to start your storybook.
Your profile, or storybook, is a compilation of your interests, memories, family and friends, traditions, neighborhood, home, hobbies, career, and what makes you YOU. It is a two-dimensional visual, put into 20 pages or less, about your life that will be handed to an expectant mother. It is the sole tool that is used by an expectant mother to choose who she wants to parent her child. That is huge for her and it is not an easy decision. It is a forever decision.
To put it frankly, you’re going to want to stand out, because she will be looking at A LOT of different profiles. How do you stand out? For starters, you need to know that a profile should show an expectant mother what a child would look like in your life. What activities do you look forward to doing with a child? What would be a family tradition the child will partake in? What will be the child’s favorite parts of your home be?
It’s just not enough to show all your travels, or the best pictures of you with your spouse, or how nice of a home you live in. The adoption profile is a place to tell stories, which is why I call it the storybook process. Stories are what resonates with people and what leaves them thinking about you. Tell a story that makes an expectant mother go “awww” or giggle or remember that you like to eat Cheerios with raspberries.
It is all about the little details. It is the details you think don’t matter that an expectant mother ends up connecting with. So tell a story about going fishing with your grandpa, or tell a story about going to get your dog from the animal shelter. At RG Adoption Consulting, we work an adoption profile designer that helps you tell the right stories, find all the right details, pick the perfect photos, and design a storybook that is beautiful inside and out.
At the end of the day, you have to be yourself and be authentic to who you are. You cannot approach your profile with the mindset of “what will an expectant mother connect with.” Instead, you have to be willing to show yourself as truly as possible and have faith that there is an expectant mother out there who will connect to you. So be yourself, no matter how quirky, offbeat, and different that is! Show off your tattoos, share your unique hobbies, talk about your love for your religion. Be authentic and give an expectant mother a glimpse of who you are and what your life is like.