[allison888]

My dh and I are currently waiting for a match (it has been about three months). I cannot stop second-guessing our profile book! I am trying to make myself wait until the 6month mark to tweak it.

The two things I'm obsessing about are that 1) it is not unique enough and 2) not all of the photos are flattering. After reading just about every parent profile online, ours seems to be very similar.

Does anyone else have second thoughts about your profile books? Did you tweak them?

[Fran27]

About three times in two years! I think the last version was pretty much perfect, a good representation of us. I didn't like any of the pictures but I really don't like seeing me in pictures anyway. I think it's fine if the pictures are not flattering though, as long as they represent you well.

[nikkianni]

Yes! Obsessively and constantly. It was the only thing I really had control over and boy did I exert my control.
Our profile was online and a tweaked it somehow once a week. Usually it was a change of wording or font. Sometimes I added or rearranged pictures. And of course I changed the background to reflect the season or holiday, lol.
Looking back it was totally unhealthy.....and I'm sure I'll do it again with adoption #2.

[mandirenee]

We just updated our profile for the 1st time in 8 months. I updated for 2 reasons 1) our son is 1 year older so I thought having pics of him older (not so much a baby) would help and 2) our original books were not in the order I prefered due to an error at the printer.

I don't think you should worry about updating too soon. It's expensive and stressful to update. I would say 6-9 months is a good time to update.

[ChromaKelly]

Me too! Every time I take pictures since we had our books printed I think "ooh, would those make good profile pic books?" I also think about how the wording could be different, all kinds of stuff. I'll wait until I've used up the books we have, then I might tweak them for the next order.

[mg1970]

I have not changed our profile book with the agency in 6 months and I have only changed a few words on our online version, but I add photos often. I felt really good about the text after I spent about a month on it. I used to write professionally before I changed careers so I felt like the text was pretty strong. Since then I have thought there are a few minor things that I would like to take out.

I have been totally obsessive with taking photos since then and it really annoys my husband. He will not cooperate and be a good sport about taking photos -- so therefore I have an insatiable appetite for capturing every moment. I can see how it could be annoying -- for example I will take the tripod with us to outings so I can set up the timer to get a family photo, and I always want to have several shots to choose from. But he could be a better sport about it.

Now, 6 months later, I think we have a lot better photos. I am actually planning on redoing the book but I can't find the source files for the original book so it looks like I will have to do the whole thing over. If I could only get motivated to start that project ....

M

[trixila]

Contact your agency to request copies of other waiting families' letters. Our agency complied and it helped seeing what else was out there. They should be willing to help you out, it is not an unreasonable request. Still, the desire to tweak will never go away until you have a successful placement. The best story I ever heard about this was a birthmother choosing a family b/c the afather worked for Nabisco and her own father drove a truck for Nabisco. There are some things in this equation that you cannot predict. Believe me, when you are done building your family, I advise a ceremonial tossing of all 'Dear Birthmother" letter stuff (the extra copies, unused photos and stickers, etc) Compiling a letter is alot of work, continue to seek out advice from others, there is tons of stuff online. Good luck, your child is out there, waiting for you.

[kindredspirit]

Yeah, I change mine from time to time. If I see that the letter is being read but no contact, I change a little to see if it makes a difference.

I update photos and on the website that I use, I update the journal to include what is going on in our everyday lives.

Don't go nuts but if you feel you are not getting the response you want, take another look. Have a friend or two look it over for suggestions, even ask someone you are not so close with to get an honest opinion.

[ByChanceBaby]

Our letter's text was "approved" by our agency and we're in the midst of laying it out with photos, but I can't help feeling that these two pages don't really capture our essence. I feel it's too wordy, when I look at other letters that seem so "surfacy"...but they are short and sweet. There is so much we want to share about our lives and how much we want to be parents and all the little things that make us unique that we have to offer a child, but it seems impossible to convey. I can't help feeling like all of the letters look and sound the same, and it's hard to believe there is something that could possibly make our letter resonate or stand out to prompt interest. I know I'm obsessing like the first poster. But, like the other post said, you'd be surprised what catches someone's attention (driving the Nabisco truck as mentioned in the other post). I just don't know how to put into words how much we have to offer a child while also showing our personalities. I hate feeling like we have to condense ourselves...it's so hard!

[allison888]

Bychance--what was very eye-opening to me was sending my letter to a few friends for them to review. One of them was a new mom and really helped me with what info she'd be looking for if she was placing her baby.

Her comments prompted me to overhaul our letter and I feel pretty good about the one we have now.

[finallyamom0310]

I would also like to add to keep in mind that since you are limited in space that when you do get to talk to an emom you can share with her all the extras. This is the hardest part to me of the process the profile and then waiting to see if it is up to snuff. I even asked our agency numerous times if they ever get comments from emoms about what they like and don't like so that families can update profiles. The agency said that emoms will comment on positives but not negatives as they are already faced with the thought of being judged that they don't want to judge others in a negative way. Part of me wishes they knew how important it is to waiting families to have feed back as well.

[sbaglio]

We didn't change ours once it was completed. We were matched in 3 months, and DD was born 2 months later. Regardless, we never thought about changing our profile (maybe we would have had we waited longer, who knows). But that may not be the right thing to focus on. Your waiting may just be par for the course, as it is for all of us, and may have nothing to do with your profile.

I think it can be really nerve-wracking to continually wonder whether your profile is "perfect" (what is a perfect profile, really). If you can find out how often you are being shown to birthfamilies, that may help. Being shown multiple times and not getting chosen may provide some concrete evidence that you should make somes changes in the profile.

Good luck!

[ByChanceBaby]

Thank you. I didn't mean to hijack Alison's thread. It is just really nice to know that everyone hoping to adopt goes through this challenge. I think that was good advice to have a friend look at it from an emom's perspective and to ask, what are those things she would want to know and be assured of? Once our letter and website is up and running, I hope to put it in my profile for viewing. Hope to be more active on these boards, once we get "in the books"!

Have a great day everyone.

Jen