Adoption Profile

Last week, the time finally came for us to start putting together all the pieces of our profile.  The profile is a very important part of the adoption process, because it is what birth parents use to determine if they think you are right for their child.  No pressure there at all...

We have done allot of paperwork throughout this process, and I have to say this is by far the most difficult.  Not only do we have to decide on a format, input pictures, determine appropriate backgrounds, and write the content, but we have to put it all together.  Ourselves....  For some who are pros on a computer, this might not be a daunting task.  For me it seems downright impossible.  I have an idea of how I want everything to look, actually making it happen turns out to be a bit complicated.  I had to enlist the help of Leslie, yet again, to get everything together.  She was of course marvellous, and an amazing help.

Nic and I took the rough draft to a meeting on Monday we had with the women who facilitated our PRIDE training.  She is also a practitioner and we thought she would be a great source of information.  She said overall our profile looks great, but we were missing a few things.  She said we should add in a section on our views on parenting.  We had mentioned a bit about what we wanted to do with our children, and how family life would be, but not necessarily our values, how we would discipline them, or educate them.  So we have to work on that.  Because I feel like it is already kind of long, I am going to try to minimize some of the other sections to make room for this. 

She also said that one of the agencies she recommends we sign up with, receives some donation money from the church.  Because of that she figures they will want us to talk a bit about religion.  Nothing in depth, but at least what denomination we are both baptised.  Because we are both non-practicing I had not included it at all.  So I may just add it in so that the information is there. 

After spending almost every waking hour on the profile last week, I am taking a bit of a break from it this week.  I will get back to it again on Friday or the weekend.  Since some of what I have to change is context I wanted to have fresh eyes.

I will be sending e-mails out shortly with specifics about pictures contained in the profile.  It is of course full of family and friends.  I want to make sure that everyone who is in it, is okay with that.  No names are mentioned at all, just what your relationship is to us.  But there will eventually be parts of it posted on the internet, so I thought better to check now than to have to change pictures around later.  It already seems like we have to do everything a million times over, so why create more work for myself.

At our Monday meeting she also gave us an idea of some agencies to put our profile with.  She said it sometimes takes up to two months to get appointments with these agencies.  EEK! So I am going to try and get an idea of when our homestudy will be completed.  We need to have it in hand for the actually meeting, but not to schedule the appointment.   So if I know when it will be done I can start making some calls.  Wish me luck with that!

In general everything seems to be moving forward.  There is still lots to do, but that is okay.  It feels good to be being productive.  Once our homestudy is completed we will be ready to go!  It is exciting to be nearing the end of the approval process.  At least if we have to wait a bit to get into the agencies, we can get our profile up online, as a start. It sounds like our age will be an advantage, which is great.  For once being young is not a hindrance!