[jkovick]

We have discussed several different people to use as our personal references and keep changing who we are going to ask. Am I over analyzing this? What would happen if one of the references wrote something (inadvertently of course) that was questionable? I am so confused.

[cthy757]

We picked mostly friends of ours to be our references. The main thing is to pick RESPONSIBLE people who will complete it and send it in ASAP. Also, make sure you make copies of the original questions in case someone loses theirs (It happened in our case). Then just try to relax. No one is out to make you look bad.

[jujubeat]

My experience was that people wrote much nicer things than I ever imagined they would. The problem was getting them back, and it did delay my final application process. Frustrating for sure, but the letters were excellent.

[Max'smom]

Choose people who are going to return them on time. Don't choose someone with a constant crisis every week of their life. They will delay you application.

[sussgirl]

I stressed somewhat. We chose people who were responsible, family oriented, and close to us. There are perhaps people who are closer, who knew us better, but we wanted people who would portray us as a good family with our 4-yr-old bio daughter than just perhaps someone who they hung out with in college or went to grade school together.

Best of luck!

Michelle

[tinkerbell11599]

We picked friends that were (1) open to us adopting, (2) open to us adopting from Korea, and (3) family oriented or at the very least loved kids. If they didn't agree to the first two, we weren't going to use them. We didn't want any negativity being displayed in the letters. Nobody that we asked said "no we won't do it". They were excited for us to start our family.

One of my best friends that did a letter for us even wanted to suggest to us before that we should look into Korea when we were in the domestic process but didn't know how we would take it!!!

Good luck in picking out your friends to use.

Jen

[adoptkoreablog]

We chose two friends and my brother-in-law for our reference. I discovered that they stressed over it far more than I did. They were worried that they would say the wrong thing. I agree with the earlier post - make sure that you pick people who will do it in a timely manner. Otherwise, if you trust them, they will do a good job. Our social worker never even mentioned the letters except to tell us that my brother-in-law was the last to send his in. He agonized over it - many drafts.