Profile Advice

hway24

I'm working on our profile and obviously I want it to be as good as possible. I know not to dwell too much on negetive stuff, but I also feel like sharing negative parts of our lives is imortant and makes us real and maybe a birthmother could relate. DH disagrees and thinks we should leave it out. I'd like some opinions. Here's what I have that we disagree about:

       We've been married five wonderful years and can't wait to start a family together. Our struggles with infertility were hard on both of us, but it also strengthened us. I know that if we can make it through that, we can get through anything together. It also taught us patience, persistence, and gratitude.                                                                 

      

       I have two younger brothers, though my youngest brother passed away 8 years ago at the age of 12. That was extremely hard on all of us, but we leaned on each other and made it through as a family. My parents are divorced, but on good terms. I don?t think of my family as broken, just expanded. My mom is remarried and my dad is in a committed relationship. Your child will have twice the grandparents and love. They are all looking forward to spoiling their first grandchild.    Thanks for the advice!                                                      

Go_Dawgs

I think the first paragraph about your infertility is fine.

I would leave out the part about your brother.  I do understand why you want to include it - it's a big part of who you are.  However, I generally think that anything that might leave a birth mom with a feeling of great sadness should be left out.  

I wouldn't point out that your parents are divorced.  However, I think it's fine to say something like "My mom and stepdad live nearby and are we are very close.  They can't wait to be grandparents!  My dad also lives nearby, and both of my parents will be very involved in our child's life."  This is conveying nearly the same information, but doing so in a 100% positive light.  

My husband is estranged from his father and they haven't talked in years.  His dad doesn't even know that my husband is married, much less adopting a child.  We simply left any mention of his dad out of our profile book, but we did include pictures of his mom, step dad and step brother, and clearly identified them as step relatives. 

hway24

Thanks go_dawgs, I think I will take out the part about my brother and rewrite the paragraph about my parents.

rwunderlich13

I think the first paragraph is great. I would leave out the second. Personally, for our profile, we had nothing gloomy or negative (for lack of better terms) we kept it totally upbeat and positive. When and if they/she wanted to know more, we could talk about it than.

 Good luck - this was the hardest part in my opinion of the whole process. Profiles make or break you cause it's all based on first impressions  : )

sh4602

perosnally i would try to keep it upbeat the part about infertiltiy is fine.

Dr.Loretta

I really like the first paragraph.

I'm also OK with the discussion of your brother, but I might reword it.

I'd leave out the part about your parents.

hway24

Thanks for all the advice! I'll be so glad when I'm done with this profile it's really stressing me out cause I know it's like the most important thing. 

DBurket

Go_Dawgs:

I think the first paragraph about your infertility is fine.

I would leave out the part about your brother.  I do understand why you want to include it - it's a big part of who you are.  However, I generally think that anything that might leave a birth mom with a feeling of great sadness should be left out.  

I wouldn't point out that your parents are divorced.  However, I think it's fine to say something like "My mom and stepdad live nearby and are we are very close.  They can't wait to be grandparents!  My dad also lives nearby, and both of my parents will be very involved in our child's life."  This is conveying nearly the same information, but doing so in a 100% positive light.  

 

I 100% agree with this!

Dr.Loretta

Another thing to consider is that these things could be addressed more in your autobiography, but less or not at all in your profile book.

hway24

We have to write an autobiography? Our agancy hasn't mentioned that.

rwunderlich13

hway24:

We have to write an autobiography? Our agancy hasn't mentioned that.

 

We're using a Facilitator but for us, our profile was to be shown to birthmoms. Lots of pictures and happy, positive, information on us in a nutshell - nothing deep and not long, more straight to the point.

Our autobiography was required for our home study. That thing was a NIGHTMARE to write. It's like every detail of your entire life and a ba-zillion pages long lol. That is where the good the bad and the ugly are written about. In our situation the birthmom never sees that. HTH!

Dr.Loretta

hway24:

We have to write an autobiography? Our agancy hasn't mentioned that.

We had to write one, a very detailed document in response to a variety of questions from our agency about our childhoods, relationships with each other and our families, views on adoption and open adoption, etc.

Maybe your agency does it differently, but we addressed all the "tough" parts of our lives there and they didn't carry into the profile.

hway24

rwunderlich13:

 

We're using a Facilitator but for us, our profile was to be shown to birthmoms. Lots of pictures and happy, positive, information on us in a nutshell - nothing deep and not long, more straight to the point.

Our autobiography was required for our home study. That thing was a NIGHTMARE to write. It's like every detail of your entire life and a ba-zillion pages long lol. That is where the good the bad and the ugly are written about. In our situation the birthmom never sees that. HTH!

 

We do have to do that for our homestudy, I'm working on that right now too and it is a nightmare!! I'm hating it right now!

hway24

Dr.Loretta:

We had to write one, a very detailed document in response to a variety of questions from our agency about our childhoods, relationships with each other and our families, views on adoption and open adoption, etc.

Maybe your agency does it differently, but we addressed all the "tough" parts of our lives there and they didn't carry into the profile.

 We do that have too, but it doesn't seem to go too in depth.