A Lifebook for adoption is a scrapbook that details how your child came to be with you.  It is their history and past as well as their present and future.  It is an awesome way to open the door of communication with them to talk bout adoption and also helps them to better understand how they came to be with you.  It also helps them form their identity as they learn where they came from, who they look like, why their birthparents chose adoption and the journey they made to come to you.

You can start a Lifebook in a number of ways.  You can either start from when you met the birthparents, when your child was born or even go back to when the birthmother was pregnant and started considering making an adoption plan. A Lifebook acknowledges that your child’s history did not begin with adoption.  There is a whole story about their lives that happened before they were even born.

If you have a relationship with the birthmother and/or birthfather ask for their help with the book.  Include pictures of them and their families in the book and pictures of the birthmother pregnant as this will help your child understand where they came from, especially when they begin to understand that babies grow in tummies.  I primarily work with birthparents at the adoption agency where I work and I always try to get some pictures of them while they are pregnant (with their permission of course) to be able to give to the adoptive family.  Have the birthparents write letters to add to the book.  I worked with a birthmother who created a Lifebook for her child that was a labor of love for her.

Get your family involved as well.  If you have other children, have them draw a picture or write something in the book.  Your extended family can write letters or well wishes to your child and they can add to the story of how you told them that you were going to be a Mommy and Daddy.

Write down details as they happen, even if you just jot them in a notebook for now and add to them later.  Things happen so fast and it is often hard to keep up with everything.  You might think that you will remember exactly how you felt or what you were going when you first learned about your child or got the call to go to the hospital, but you might forget an important detail such as what the adoption worker said to you or how your spouse and family looked when you told them.

I worked with a birthmother from Guatemala who found out she was pregnant after an unfortunate event.  She WALKED all the way from Guatemala to the US/Mexican border, endured 5 days locked in the back of a truck and walked from Texas to Tennessee to be with her husband and make an adoption plan.  The adoptive family was able to chronicle the journey for their daughter, even though they did leave out some parts of the story to be able to share with her when she was older.

Even better than a child’s book about adoption, your child’s Lifebook will detail their own adoption experience.  It will allow them to have their questions answered and it will also open the door for them to ask you other questions in the future.  It is a way for you to celebrate your child’s story and what makes them so unique and a way to celebrate adoption as well.  I would encourage you to begin the Lifebook even while you are in the waiting process so that you are able to share everything about your child’s story with them and write it down as it happens so that you don’t forget to share even the simplest details with them.  Sometimes the fact that you were planting flowers when you got the call or rocked them all night in the hospital wrapped in the blanket their birthmother made for them end up being the most important details to them about their story.

As the age of secrecy in adoption is slowly falling behind us, families are beginning to realize the importance of talking to their child about adoption from the time the child is placed with them.  There is no “magical” age that should be reached before a child knows their birth history and how they came to be with you.  If you are open and honest with your child from the beginning then adoption will seem normal to them.  It is just a part of who they are and how your family was formed.

Secrets are often seen as being bad.  Think about this.  Why do we keep secrets or not tell the truth about things?  Because what happened was so bad that we don’t want to talk about it.  If a child is not allowed to freely ask questions and discuss their birth history, then their birth history is seen as bad.  This can translate to “I am bad” or “I must not have been loved.”

Studies show that the more open families are with their children about adoption, the more comfortable their children are with the subject.  Being open with your child about adoption does not mean you necessarily have to have an open adoption.  It simply means that you are not going to keep secrets from your child and that you are willing to let them talk about whatever they need to talk about.

We encourage couples to talk about adoption from the day they receive their child.  This means, before they can even understand what you are saying you are practicing telling them about their birth story.  Terms such as “adoption” and “birthfamily” are introduced from the beginning and concepts such as “your birthmother loved you and chose adoption because she loved you” and “your father and I prayed for you to come to us and were so excited the first time we saw you” are concepts that they will always know to be true.

Fortunately we live in an age where there are plenty of children’s books to help you talk to your child about adoption.  Books such as Tell Me Again about the Night I was Born by Jamie Lee Curtis, I Love You Like Crazy Cakes by Rose A. Lewis and Happy Adoption Day by John McCutcheon are available for you to share adoption stories in a way that children can understand.  There are children’s books geared towards International Adoption, open adoption and older child adoption.  Be sure that you read the book before sharing it with your child to make sure that it applies to their story in some way.  For instance, if you have a closed adoption, then a book about an open adoption would not be something they could relate to.

Talking to Your Child About Adoption by Pat Martinez Dorner is an excellent guide for parents.  It covers talking to your child when they are infants, preschoolers, and in the elementary school through high school years. This helps you to determine where they are emotionally and cognitively to present different adoption concepts.  Other good books for adoptive parents include Explaining Adoption To Your Adopted Child — A Guide for Adoptive Parents  by Prue Chennels and Talking With Young Children About Adoption by Mary Watkins and Susan Fisher.  Tapestry Books is an excellent resource for all types of adoption books and subjects.  Even if you did not use an adoption agency for your adoption, contact a local agency for book ideas or guidance on talking to your child about adoption.

When talking to your child about adoption it is important to be open, honest and positive.  Do not lie or make up information about their birthfamily or adoption.  Even if it is hard to say something positive about something, such as a birthfather who did not participate at all in the process, you should still state something good about them, even if it is as simple as “he was not able to take care of you when you were born so he let you come to us so that we could take care of you.”  If you don’t know an answer to a question, just say you don’t know.  This is hard for parents because you want to give your child the answers to all of their questions.  Perhaps you can ask the agency or birthmother if you have contact with her and she might be able to answer the question.

If you are always open about adoption and comfortable with the subject, then your child will be too.  It is also good for you to start an adoption discussion with them occasionally just so they know that they can come to you to discuss things, that you are fine with talking about their birth history and adoption.  The age of secrecy in adoptions is past, so celebrate your child’s adoption and history with them and let them know how thankful and blessed you are to have been chosen to be their parents and to have them in your lives.

When you are going through an agency to do an adoption, at some point during the process they will talk to you about what kind of social and medical history you feel comfortable with.  This includes anything from the medical and mental health history of the birth family to things that occur during the pregnancy to medical issues that your child might have at birth.  Even if you are not going through an agency, I would encourage you to discuss the issues mentioned in this article to decide what kind of situations you feel comfortable with and which situations you would not feel comfortable with.  Discussing these issues ahead of time is important because when you are finally chosen by a birthparent it is hard to think clearly about whether or not you can turn down a placement when there is already a baby in the picture.

Before I begin, let me say that there are some couples that feel comfortable with any situation from older children to birth parent drug use to children born HIV positive.  If you are one of these families, at this point you are wondering why I am writing this article.  The truth is, it takes more than love to raise a child, especially if they have special needs.  A family needs to feel equipped to handle a situation before bringing a child into the home or it is the child who will suffer in the end.  For this reason it is imperative that couples discuss these issues so that they can provide their child with the safe, stable, nurturing home that they need.

Medical history should be considered not only for the birthparents but the extended birthfamily including children, parents and grandparents.  When considering medical history for a child, you should not only think about their medical history but your own as well.  If asthma, diabetes or hearing problems run in your family, then it more than likely won’t bother you if it runs in their family as well.  Other medical issues to consider include cancer, blindness, tourette’s syndrome and dwarfism.  While some medical conditions such as asthma or diabetes are not known at birth, other conditions such as missing limbs, downs syndrome and HIV are known from the beginning.  Some medical conditions can be fixed surgically whereas others are lifelong conditions.  Even though your biological child would have a chance of having some of these medical conditions, you need to discuss which conditions you are willing to consider and which conditions you don’t feel comfortable with.

Just like medical history, mental health history needs to be considered for the birthparents’ extended families.  Does depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorders run in the family?  Is depression more the result of situational circumstances or does it seem to be a recurring trend in the family?  If there is a mental health diagnosis in the family, you should discuss it with a local psychologist or psychiatrist to find out if it is hereditary and whether or not it can be treated.

By social history, I am talking specifically about the birthparents and the pregnancy.  Are you comfortable if there is no prenatal care?  Are you willing to accept a placement where the birthfather is unknown or unwilling to give any medical history?  Do you feel comfortable with a birthmother who smoked marijuana or cigarette’s or drank during the pregnancy?  Before you say no, consider two different scenarios about this one question.  One birthmother might have smoked marijuana 2-3 times before she found out she was pregnant and only smoked 2 cigarettes per day during her pregnancy while another birthmother might have smoked marijuana and cigarettes throughout the entire pregnancy.  Sometimes it is better to consider a situation before you shut the door on it.

In fact, for most situations from medical to mental health to social history you should be willing to keep an open mind.  Obviously in such situations as an HIV positive child, there are no unknowns, you know what the condition means.  But, many of the situations are specific to each case and should be reviewed on a case by case basis.  Get all the facts you can before making a decision.  Just because a birthmother had multiple partners or a birthfather used drugs does not mean that they are not going to have a perfectly healthy baby.  Along the same lines you can work with a birthmother who took wonderful care of herself during the pregnancy and a birthfather who is very much involved and the baby can be born with a serious medical condition.

Probably the most important thing to discuss before accepting a placement is whether or not you feel comfortable with doing a transracial adoption.  This means if you are a Caucasian or African American couple wanting to adopt a child of any race is your environment, family and community ready to accept a child of another race.  You need a community filled with diversity and a family without prejudice. You also need to be ready to handle the additional comments and questions that come with adopting transracially.  Like I said before, it takes more than love to raise a child and you need to take a good look at your surroundings before adopting transracially.

These are just a few of the many issues to discuss before adopting.  Don’t feel bad if there is a situation that you don’t feel equipped to handle.  You need to be honest about your answers to these questions.  By being honest, you can be sure that you will be able to provide your child with the safe, secure and nurturing home that they need and deserve.

How can you possible say “Thank you” to those who fulfilled your hopes and dreams by choosing you as parents for their child?  How can you possibly express your gratitude, your love, and your caring for them?  How can you possibly find the right gift to give them when you know that they are grieving the loss of their child through adoption while still being grateful to you for giving their child a safe home full of love and security?

Choosing a gift to give your child’s Birthparents is a very difficult thing to do.  It is hard to find the appropriate gift, to find one that expresses all your thoughts and emotions.  It really is hard to find a way to say “Thank you” and to let them know that you care about them.  After nine years of doing adoptions, I have witnessed some truly awesome gifts given to Birthparents by adoptive parents both in the hospital and at the placement ceremony when the child is actually placed with them.

Let me start by saying that a beautiful flower bouquet is a nice gesture, but flowers do not last forever.  So, if you want to give them flowers that is great, but you should also consider giving them a more permanent gift, one that they can keep and will remind them of their child that they love and care for so much.

You should write a letter to the Birthmother and Birthfather, telling them how you are feeling at that exact moment.  Thank them for choosing life.  Thank them for making you a family.  Let them know that you know that they love their child and that their child will always know how much they are loved by their Birthfamily.  Express your hopes and dreams for their child.  Birthparents need to know that their child will be taken care of and they need to know that you understand that this is a very difficult decision and a very difficult time for them, that you know it took a lot of heartache for them to choose adoption and that you know they chose adoption because they love their child dearly.

Include photos with your card or present if at all possible.  I have had adoptive parents who were present at the birth of their child go to a photo lab that same day and have all the pictures from the hospital developed and put in a book.  Include pictures of the Birthmother pregnant if you have them.  If your letter or present are going out after your child is already home, include pictures of them in their new home, in their nursery or doing their daily eat/sleep activities.  Birthparents love to get pictures of their child.

As I said before, make sure your gift is a permanent gift and one that they can keep forever.  Jewelry is always a good choice, especially if it is personalized in some manner.  A ring, necklace or earrings that contain the birthstone of their child are a gift that they could wear everyday.  They can choose whether or not to share the meaning of the birthstone with others but it will always have a special meaning to them.  One of our adoptive families gave a ring to the Birthmother and the adoptive mother wore an identical ring, linking the two together.  Another family gave the Birthmother a charm bracelet with the child’s first initial, birthstone and a dove for peace.  Every year they give the Birthmother a new charm to add to the bracelet.  Having jewelry engraved with the baby’s date of birth or the baby’s initials are also great, personal ideas.

Other good Birthparent gifts include anything engraved with the baby’s initials or birth date such as a jewelry box, a keepsake box or a pocket knife for the Birthfather.  Listen to your Birthparents.  Knowing what kind of things they like can give you a good hint as to what kind of gift to give.  I worked with an adoptive family that began a scrapbook for the baby with the Birthmother (who loved scrapbooking) before the baby was born.  They made an identical one without the Birthmother knowing and gave it to her when the baby was born so that she could have one for herself.  The adoptive family makes copies of any significant things for the Birthmother, such as photos of all the baby’s firsts.  The little girl recently drew some pictures and gave them to her Birthmother for the book.

As you begin to think of your gift to give your child’s Birthparents, remember to make it special and make it unique.  Although it is still difficult to fully express your thanks, your love, and your gratitude to them for choosing adoption and making you a family, making it personalized for your situation and your child’s Birthparents is a great place to start.  Remember to include a note with the gift and to give them a gift that they will be able to keep and cherish forever.