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If you are adopting by matching with a placing mother, then your agency, attorney, or facilitator will probably ask you to put together an adoptive parent profile. Your profile will be shown to placing mothers, along with profiles created by other hopeful adoptive parents, so that the placing mother can choose the best adoptive family for her child. Since this profile is your introduction to the placing mother, you want to make sure that it accurately describes who you are as a couple or family.
Profiles can be put together in a number of ways, such as —
- Album
- Notebook
- Scrapbook
- Video
- Website
Profiles should include pictures and a letter to the placing mother that shares information about you and spouse, such as —
- Careers
- Children (if applicable)
- Extended family
- Hobbies
- Interests
I, personally, found the process of putting together a profile very challenging. My first attempt was a great example of what not to do. My profile reflected my reservations and insecurities about the placing mother. While there was nothing in the profile that directly said this, my insecurities were evident in how reserved and guarded I was in the presentation of my family.
For example, I only included my nephews’ initials instead of sharing their names with the placing mothers. I told the placing mothers about our house and our jobs, but I revealed very little about who we were as people. I believe that this guardedness was the reason that we were not matched during the time that this profile was shown.
After a year passed, the agency told me to put together another profile. When I asked what needed to be different, the social worker said that I needed to make the profile look more like a scrapbook and include lots of stickers. I was very angry after this phone call for two reasons:
- The agency waited an entire year to tell me that the profile needed to be reworked.
- I could not believe that we were being passed over because of a lack of stickers in our profile.
I now understand what the social worker was trying to tell me. I needed to be less guarded. I needed to reveal who we were as a couple and invite the placing mother into our lives. My profile sent the message that I was not comfortable sharing basic information about my life, so how could a placing mother trust that I would share information about her birthchild after the adoption?
This series will help you to understand the purpose of adoptive parent profiles and provide you with some insight into creating a profile that is representative of who you are as a couple or family.
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