include birthmom in album or not?

I think it is important to tell the truth, but the truth isn't always easy. Your son's therapist, of course, should be a good source of advice. I don't even know your son or his history... but here are my thoughts. I'm not sure if you mean placing the photo in a simple photo album or in your children's lifebooks. If it is a question of including the photo in the lifebook(s), I would say yes. If your child's lifebook has removable pages, perhaps this could be a page that could be removed if it is upsetting to your child. At some point in your child's life, he may want the page returned to the lifebook. An article written by Nancy Reynolds and published in Adoptive Families Magazine in 1995 states: "do not shy away from including difficult information (in a lifebook) as long as it is nonjudgmental and framed in developmentally appropriate language. All history contains positive and negative elements. It is important to a child's sense of self to understand the negatives as well as the positives. ... withholding information may cause a child to imagine something harsher than the reality." I definitely would not crop the photo.

Just a note: the letters B and M are astericked out when put together because many birthmothers find it offensive to be labeled the same as a bodily function.

I have included the birthfamily of my adopted daughters in their lifebooks, but not in their regular 'scrapbooks' We do have limited visits, and my 8 yr old keeps a small book for herself with pictures from those visits. Diane

Ours is a slightly different situation, but... We have one photo of our son's birthmom. We have only a semiopen arrangement, but we've never received communication from her. Because we don't know how she'd feel about it, we have her photo put away for our son. We've shown it to no one else. We talk about her in his scrapbook a little, but no photo of her there. When he's older, he can decide if we want to do a page and include her in his baby album.

We do not have pics or mention D in our sons regular scrapbook. D and pics of her and our son are in his adoption life book. You mentioned that the pics of your kids only go back to when they are toddlers. Can you find out what hospital they were born in? I went back and took pics of the hospital my son was born in so that he had a starting place. We also made hospital beaded wrist bracelets as a craft and included them in his lifebook.

Dianethanks for the ideas. i like the idea of a separate book for the other family.

We included birth mom and birth dad photos at my son's request.