Hello. Nice to meet you

LOL... now i feel like a shmuck for mentioning snorkeling! I swear I pulled that off the top of my head!!! :D I was just giving an example of activities that dont make much sense with a baby. It just makes me wonder if couples have thought through how much use that Six Flags season pass is going to get, when someone has to stay with the baby. After all... watching the choo-choo train go in circles is only fun for so long....Neways, glad I could be of help! If you want anymore outlooks from the "other side" just let me know! Hope ya'll are doing well :D

Thanks Fairydust! Your insights are very valuable to me. I really appreciate you taking the time to tell us what is appealing. I think , for me at least, I overthink everything. I try to make my profile appealing, but I don't know if some things sound dumb to pbm's.

As an LDS firstmom that has placed two daughters for adoption with two different families through LDSFS, I'll weigh in a little here to say that I agree with some of what Fairydust said also. I also agree with what aspenhall has said in that you need to be sincere and true to your personalities. But what it comes down to is that you just need to be you and be sincere in what you say and then when the right pbmom looks at your profile, it will click with her if it's meant to be. With both my girls when I was looking at profiles, it just clicked with me when I looked at the families profiles that I ended up placing each of my girls with. I hope that helps some. Best of luck :).

no, no, no Fairydust, don't feel bad. It is refreshing to read what you have to say. It altered my perspective on our birth parent letters and profiles. Instead of putting "travel" as a hobby and "snorkeling" we can put why, what it is about traveling/snorkling in relation to being a parent, and your post was very good at explaining what many PBP are looking for. I've browsed the profiles at LDS as suggested by our worker and I too was concerned with how many hopefull adoptive parents talked of their love for the birth parents, the sacrifice etc. It all sounded the same to me, however, if I had not read those letters mine would have sounded very similar perhaps because adoptive parents have similar feelings-have to admit I am still struggeling with what to write?-any advice? This letter is so hard! As a mother, as a foster parent, as a human being who realizes how heart breaking this decision is, it is the ultimate sacrifice, or at least I feel that it is, I think from the LDS perspective we are in "awe" of this decision. We can't have anymore children, adoption is the only way to grow our family. For many of us Heavenly Father has let us know we are to have more chidlren and that they will come through adoption. How do you thank someone for considering something so selfless? As a foster mom every parent that I have personally worked with are not horrible monsters who abused their children outright, they are human beings placed in overwhelming circumstances without the tools or skills necessary to parent. Its been humbeling for me to see how hard they will work to gain those necessary skills that most of them did not get from their parents, the goal in foster care is always reunification. I have worked with a few birth families and I have to say even though it was very hard for me to love their chidlren as my own knowing I would say goodbye it was necessary in order to care for them the way they needed to be cared for. The pain of the day our long term foster son was reunited is undescribable. When the judge sent him home for good I was in shock. Truthfully it is something I will greive forever. I was happy for his mom, she had worked so hard, she was ready, I even felt this was as it should be and had a sense of peace about it, but the sadness and loss was very raw and it still very real. If I had the choice, to let him go or keep him??? What would I have done? I don't know how I would have chosen to let him go, The only thing I can think of is if I felt it was God's plan for him, I hate to say I don't have the faith but I honestly do not know if I would be able to have made that choice, its just amazing for me to realize there are women out there who choose this and take this gian leap of faith and trust in God that this is the family meant for their baby, how do you put that in a letter and should you put it in a letter? It is wonderful to hear birth parents perspective. :thanks:L

I find it funny that "everyone loves the outdoors." With our first adoption my husband and I were told we were too indoorsy, so that is why we were not being chosen. We had to come up with every outdoor experience we ever had to spice up our profile. I also found "tell about Thursday nights watching movies, eating homemade popcorn and snuggling in your pajamas" funny. Our very first birthparent letter with our first adoption talked of our Friday night slumber parties where we do exactly that. We were told to take it out of our birth parent letter because some birth parents have been sexually abused, and our Friday night slumber parties might remind them of that.

Isn't that silly? No slumber parties...we used to do that when dd's were younger because we wanted to prevent anything inappropriate that most likely won't happen but can happen when they sleep over at a friends home. We also live in an area where there aren't many LDS families or families who share our values. We didn't end up sleeping on the floor but we ate popcorn, snuggled, did nails, and went to bed late. Go figure. Now the girls have "sister sleep overs." The more I read the more I think people should just be who they are.We were told NOT to make our picture profile too nice. Why? Basically I took this from the explanation: its not fair to other people who don't make a nice one, and ours would be less likely to be shown. I scrapbook so this is REALLY REALLY REALLY hard for me!L

[quote=We were told NOT to make our picture profile too nice. Why? Basically I took this from the explanation: its not fair to other people who don't make a nice one, and ours would be less likely to be shown. I scrapbook so this is REALLY REALLY REALLY hard for me! L[/quote] I don't think it would hurt anything to make a nice picture profile, but it would probably be a good idea to keep it simple. I hear ya, though. When you're used to scrapbooking and a lot of creativity, it can be hard to keep it simple. Good luck on that! :)

can i jump in? here are the tips that i found useful for me when i was making our profile. we did not use LDS, we are using a private laywer. one friend told me to make my profile unique. most couples basically look the same, 2 people, maybe 1 child in the picture. she loves her dogs so her profile involved her dogs, a lot. she has 2 adopted children. the other friend used a cute little flower diecut throughout her whole profile, she just got her second baby too. i had to think hard about what made me unique. well, i do already have 11 children, so that sets me apart from the others. so i used that to my advantage. i tried at first to make a *couple* type profile on the computer and it just didnt feel right. then i got out my scrapbook supplies and went for it. i did what i wanted to do, after searching the net for advice on birthmother letters. i love my profile and i dont think there is anything i would change about it. the colors coordinate throughout, i used tons of pictures. i left out the whole, i admire what you are doing thing because everyone else always puts that and bmoms gloss right over that part. they already know its a hard thing they are doing, they dont want me telling them that. the hardest part for me was writing about myself. but it worked. i followed the promptings of the Spirit, and searched for my baby, and i am waiting for the birth of our 12th child. amazing experience......... again!

I'd say make your profile as nice as you want! I really like the profiles with the "photo slideshows" because that means i get to see more pics. I'm also a big fan of the candid shots taken over summer vacations, family reunions, etc... instead of poses in a studio. Hope everyone is doing well! Merry Christmas!

Hi! I too was given A LOT of advice from different CW's about what I should remove from our profile etc. Some of it I could see the wisdom and some I couldn't. I really felt quite strongly with our first adoption that we should have my husband conversion story (He had not always been active). One worker threw a fit and said that birthparents wouldn't choose us because they wouldn't want someone who had been inactive. I stuck to my guns and refused to take it out. It is a HUGE part of our story and who we are and I didn't want to hide it. Well long story short DD's birthmom chose us SPECIFICALLY because of my husband's conversion story and loved that we weren't "perfect". She loved that my husband had fought hard to be where he is today. With our second adoption I had a silly Halloween photo of us and one worker wanted it out of our collage. She thought it would be a turn off to birthparents because it was too silly and they wouldn't "take us seriously". I said "no way, it shows our personality". When DS's birthmom and we had our first face to face she kept saying that that particular photo kept her coming back to our profile. She LOVES Halloween and loved that we can bee silly and have fun. I am sure that some birthmoms were turned off by either the photo or the fact that DH had not always been active... but the important thing is that it spoke to the RIGHT birthmoms and touched their hearts. I think the suggestions and ideas from the CW's are great and often right on. But if you feel strongly about something and have prayed and feel it should be in your profile do not back down... there may be a reason you are being prompted to include it. Oh and JMHO but I think that not making your profile really nice so that others who didn't will look better is ridiculous! You should do it however you want. If someone else doesn't put the time and effort (and you don't have to be creative... simple can be really nice and you can always ask others who are good at it for help) you should not have to lower you standards so that they look better. Just my opinion though :flowergift: . ~Rachel

Rachel,Thanks for your last comment. That is sort of how I took it. We are on the East coast so I'm assuming that is why the comment was made-scrapbooking isn't that huge here. In UT (the undeniable scrapbooking capital of the world) I can't imagine a SW telling a hopeful adoptive family the same thing I was told. L

When I was working on my profile and scrapbooking our pages....I felt enough pressure as it is to make it look "right". I think that by saying that it can't be too good, or too embellished, it added more stress to the project. It ended up working out in the end, but I can understand the frustrations, if you are a scrapbooker.

I tried to do the computer thing and couldnt. i am a true scrapbooker and once i sat down with my supplies i made something that is truely me/us. it felt better once i did it my way and i decided i wanted any eparents to accept us for who we are, not someone i was trying to be - computer expert i am not!

ok, but now take your scrap page and scan it in and post it on an online profile.....

Good idea!