Profile questions
Hi, all.
We sent the check and contract to our agency and our home study should be complete in the next few weeks. Now, we have to start focusing on our profile! Yay for the next step in the process!
Our agency does our profile, so we don't have to worry about that piece of it. However, DH & I have to send some pics for our profile and I'm not sure what kind of pictures to do. I think we're going to have some done professionally, but was curious what everyone else did?
Also, for those who had a profile through your agency, did you do a blog as well? I'm thinking of doing a blog with pics of us, a day in the life, pics of our pets, etc. I haven't talked to our agency about it, but thought that they could share the link with birth mothers who might be interested. Thoughts?
Re: Profile questions
Our profile has a lot of snapshots. We used vacation and holiday pictures. I hoped this would give a better "picture" of who we are as opposed to some posed professional pics. Good luck!
I'm surprised they're going to do your profile but won't give you guidelines on pictures to submit.
Most agencies discourage professional pictures. They want expectant parents to show what their typical everyday life is like, not what a posed picture of them is like. Just my 2c on that one.
We had some guidelines on our pictures: nothing with sunglasses, nothing from too far away, no pictures with booze; show pictures of you alone, the 2 of you together, and you with family members; nothing too old (they told us no pictures older than 3 years old). If you have certain hobbies, etc., show snapshots of that. That sort of thing.
We didn't do a blog. Our agency has a web link to all profiles on their website.
GL!
Started TTC January 2007 4 failed IUIs, 2 failed IVFs
2012 - Adopted Child #1
2014- Adopted Child #2
2015 - Fostering Child #3
Check out my infertility turned adoption blog: Discovering Joy In The Storm
Honeydew~ (and anyone else that wants to)
Will you send me a link to your profile too? All the samples our social worker sent us are of families that already have kids and included so many pages just of their kids, I'm wondering how people without kids can fill that many pages.
Started TTC January 2007 4 failed IUIs, 2 failed IVFs
2012 - Adopted Child #1
2014- Adopted Child #2
2015 - Fostering Child #3
Check out my infertility turned adoption blog: Discovering Joy In The Storm
Thanks so much for all the responses! I'm going to go through our snapshots and see what we can find. I may have some friends take some pictures of us this weekend and forego the professional pics.
I'm still hoping to receive some guidelines from our agency. I may contact them if I don't hear from them before Friday.
We had a professional picture as our front page of our paper profile. Anna's birthmom pretty much said that it's the reason she picked us. I'm not sure why, but that's what she said. Inside our profile were snapshots of us. We didn't include a picture of our dog.
ETA: Our professional picture wasn't formal or anything, it was just professionally done, and it looked very good. It was us standing together outside under our tree.
Our agency uses a standard format with one photo on the cover and 4-5 pictures inside. None of our shots were professional. They said our cover shot could be a pro shot but it wasn't necessary. The rest were supposed to be more candid, non-professional.
We had a pic of us sitting on our porch together, a pic of me teaching (with permission from the parents of my students in the pic), a pic of us at the zoo feeding a giraffe, and a pic of us at the cider mill/pumpkin patch picking pumpkins. We were told that 'action' shots tend to work better. They also said to avoid pics that aren't bright and avoid pics where you can't see your eyes (like when you're wearing sunglasses.)
I think it's definitely worth asking if they will include the link to your blog. I did a blog, but we didn't have the link in our profile.
We've just started working on our profile for adoption #2. My cousin (who's one of my best friends) is a lifestyle photographer so whenever we're all together (she always has her camera) she snaps a few action shots of DH and I because most of our candids involve DD. Were extremely lucky that by the time were ready to submit our profile well have a nice collection of action-in the moment shots that are also nice quality photos.