Creating a Profile

Imagine you had to create a snapshot of who you are with only a few words and a few pictures.  This snapshot of your life will impact another person's life so much so that their very life may depend on it.  It is that important.   What kinds of information do you include?  What pictures best show who you are, what you do and what you stand for?   A major point for consideration while you create this snapshot, is that you don't know whose life you will be impacting. 

These are some of the questions that have run through my mind as I have been working on creating our family profile.  A profile is simply a booklet/document that our social worker and adoption agency will provide to birth moms and/or dads when they are making an adoption plan for their child.  Sounds straight forward, easy and kind of fun right? 

Yes and no.

Birth parents will generally receive a number of family profiles that they can peruse before they choose a family to adopt their child.   I am not sure how many families are on the waiting list at our agency but I do know that there are more families than just us.  So, creating a profile becomes a big deal.  This profile is a birth parents' snapshot of our life.   This is the only information they will have access to in order to give us an incredible gift, a child.  Their child.  Whew -- tall order. 

What would I be looking for if I was making a plan for my child? 

The profile needs to be honest and straightforward - no glamorizing or stretching the truth as someday this birth parent will be part of our lives and will see us in our 'natural habitat'.  The profile also needs to show her why our family is the family she wants and needs for her child.   We want her to see how much fun we have and how much we love each other.

The big question basically is why should a birth parent choose us?   

So, I've been writing, importing pictures and digitally scrapbooking our life into twelve pages.  In doing so, I've realized that God has given me so much.   He has given me a husband who not only is a great hubby but an amazing father.  He has given me two great kids.  They keep me hopping but goodness, they make me laugh!  He has given me extended family and friends that bend over backwards to love, support, pray and help whenever we need it.  And He has given me a home and community to call my own.  God is so good and I am so excited to share all this good stuff with not only another child but with his/her birth parents as well.  

Again, God has shown me His love, guidance and faithfulness through this step of the process.  

Thankful. 

April 

Josh & Jude enjoying the beach. 

April & Kailyn at the zoo.