"Us Book"

KdgTeacher

So, I'm working on a Shutterfly book for our agency to show to BMs.  I'm struggling with a couple of things.  Do we include a letter to BM or not?  I've seen mixed reviews from research on the internet. 

Also, what did you include on your pages?  So far I have

MH and Me (pictures and then a short paragraph about the two of us).

2 pages of just MH (by 2 pages I mean left side/right side of an open book)

2 pages on just me

A page on our dog

Several pages on our family/friends

Travel and other hobbies/etc. 

Am I missing anything else major?

Dr.Loretta

Did you not have any feedback or instructions from your agency/attorney? I ask because our agency flooded us with examples from families who were chosen, and gave us a list of guidelines. I can share them if you want to PM me.

We had a letter to e-parents. Everything you have sounds good. Will your agency review it?

KdgTeacher

We've had one (so far obviously) face-to-face meeting with our agency...and that was more of an interview on our part.  We'll be meeting again soon to start home studies etc.

She did show us a few examples, and they were.....loaded to be honest. I bet easily 25+ pages.  I mean some examples had shots of almost every room in the house, nursery ideas, etc.  I'll certainly do that if that's the norm/what's expected, but that seems a bit much IMO. But what the heck do I know?    I'm trying to go more short paragraphs and pics with captions versus novels on every page. 

I'd love the guidelines if you're willing to share! PM coming your way!

 

MayDayGirl

We talked about our jobs, hobbies, home, neighborhood, church, families, dog, our foster care experiences, our journey to parenthood, each of us a individuals, our life before adoption .... We had a 20 page shutterfly book and a birth mom letter types separately that slipped inside. Our agency had criteria for us to follow which helped.

moosegal

Our profile book was very similar to what you already have.

We had a short intro page that just basically said we were excited to be moving onto adoption after struggling with IF and said how much we would love any child.

Then an "About Us" section -- how we met, our hobbies.

One page called "My Wife, moosegal" that DH wrote about me

One page called "My Husband, mr. moosegal" that I wrote about DH

A Home Sweet Home page that talked about our neighborhood, kid-friendly things nearby, etc (picture of our house, neighborhood pool, our backyard, but no interior shots)

Our Pets that talked about our 2 dogs

Our Family that talked about how we grew up, our niece and nephew, the grandparents, etc. (lots of family pics)

Two pages of photos called "Our Memories" -- just a bunch of photos of us that we captioned

And a closing "Thank You" page that reiterated why we would be good parents, the respect we had for BM's decision to place for adoption, etc.

 

The main tips we got from our consultant were to refer to the baby as "your child" (BM's child) and not "our child;" not to mention religion (others will disagree with that, but we had nothing in our profile about church, etc); no pictures of future nursery; and just to use adoption-friendly language in general ("place a child" vs "give up a child" -- that sort of thing); and lots of action shots vs. posed pictures.

Good luck! I found the whole profile book process pretty fun, actually.