My Adoption Advisor

In our previous article, Top 3 Tips for Creating a Strong Adoption Profile, we discussed being genuine, including fantastic photographs and captions, and telling stories instead of listing facts. In this article we will explore a few more subtle recommendations.

Before we jump to the suggestions, take two minutes and think about what you like and dislike about the following adoption profile introductory paragraph. We provide our own analysis at the end of this article.

Dear Birthmother,
This is a tremendous opportunity that you will be giving
to one very lucky family. We admire your courage in making
what we know is a difficult decision. Our hearts ache to think
that we are not yet parents. If we are privileged to adopt your
baby we will love and treasure this child as our own.

Now that you have your own opinions about what works and what doesn’t work, let’s explore ways to strengthen an adoption profile.

Do not use the “Dear Birthmother” salutation. There are two main reasons for this. First, a woman is not a birth mother until she makes an adoption plan and an expectant woman who is reading your profile has not yet made that choice. Some will resent the assumption and the label. The second reason for using another salutation is that “Dear Birthmother” excludes the expectant father and other people who can influence the adoption decision (e.g. expectant woman’s mother). Simply use “Hello” or nothing at all.

Express common feelings in a unique way. “Respect,” “courage,” and “admire” are overused in adoption profiles and when expectant parents are reading through several at a time, the words may start to seem disingenuous. It is more powerful to SHOW your respect and admiration in your profile and avoid simply stating them.

Remember the expectant parents’ perspective. The purpose of adoption for expectant parents is to find just the right family for their baby. This sounds like common sense, but many prospective adoptive families believe that adoption is entirely about finding a child for themselves. Read Separate Your History From Their Present to better understand this point. The more prospective adoptive families can deeply understand the expectant parents’ perspective, the stronger their profiles and the better they will communicate with prospective birth families.

So putting these suggestions to use, below is the same introductory paragraph that we introduced above with our red-lined recommended changes. Notice how some of the suggestions above can manifest themselves in family profiles.

If you are not getting the critical feedback that you need,
read about our adoption profile review services.

Your adoption profile is too important.

Do everything you can to put your best foot forward.