Scrapbooking to Adoption
So on Wednesday night, AdoringHusband and I went to the Adoption Profile session. As usual we were clueless about what the heck was going on. Everyone else had had things explained to them in the Home Study session, but since I was in Prague at the time, we had a separate Home Study session which didn’t mention too much about the profile.
When the meeting started we were told that though our home studies weren’t all completed, we had been approved to adopt. There were just the issues of:
- the video (scheduled for Saturday)
- the home visit
- the completed profile
- the completed profile key
- the money
So what the heck was this profile? Well, we soon discovered, it is the Dear Birthparents letter and introduction to you as a potential adoptive couple. You see, the profile is given to potential birthmothers so that they can select a couple to adopt their child. That seemed simple enough except for the fact that the profile has to be visually appealing.
The front page has a picture of the two of you (or 3 or 4 of you if you already have children) along with the introductory letter to the birthmother. The back has a collage of happy pictures. But let’s get back to the visually appealing thing. In order to make these two pages as visually appealing as possible, people have employed scrapbooking techniques.
Now let me tell you about my history with scrapbooking. About almost 2 years ago I took a scrapbooking class and planned to create a wedding scrapbook. I bought all the materials, markers, special scissors, paper and little do-dads that you stick on to create that visual POP. I even bought a $160 scrapbooking wheeled storage case and the Scrap Tutor video series for my continued education.
So how much scrapbooking have I done? None. Why? Because I’m afraid that I’ll do it wrong. My perfectionism still haunts me.
I guess you can imagine how thrilled I was to know that I would have to create essentially two scrapbook pages for our potential birthmother to look at. ACK! Now I’m paralyzed.
At least, I got approval from our social worker (who has to approve the entire 2 pages before they go into the book) for our front page picture. 
Don’t we look like a nice couple?
OK, so now I have a problem. I’ve got to overcome my scrapbooking/perfectionism phobia in order to get this profile done. Good lord!
We were shown a lot of example profiles from successful adopters to give us ideas about how to design our own. Everyone sounded so earnest and perfect. But here’s the thing that got to me. All but one of them said something to the effect of, “and Muffy plans to be a stay-at-home mother.” I’m like, well if that is the criteria for successfully adopting here, I certainly am royally screwed. AdoringHusband giggled gleefully every time I picked up another one that said the same thing. Finally there was a black couple with a very visually appealing profile. Sista-gurl had started her own business and said nothing about being a SAHM. Thank god! Finally someone else who worked and planned to continue working! I was getting very concerned.
We also reviewed how to complete the profile key. This is your special little paper telling the social workers the characteristics of the birthparents that you would be comfortable with. How much drug or alcohol use in each of the trimesters of pregnancy is OK? What if she is in prison? Takes antidepressants? Is schizophrenic?
The thing I kept tripping over was the fee schedule. Well actually there were two: Open Adoption Fee Schedule (for white children) and African American/Mixed Race Open Adoption Fee Schedule. The fees were tremendous, but there was one glaring difference between the two papers. The placement fee for Open Adoption was $18,000. The fee for African American/Mixed Race Open Adoption fee was $9,000. So look. Black kids are discounted! Oh goodie. Now we can get two black kids for the cost of one white kid.
Yeah that shit ticked me off. I know the agency says they have subsidies to encourage people to adopt black/mixed race kids, but just looking at the numbers on that page sucked. It sucked ass.
Let me be clear that this is not the only agency to offer such subsidies. This discounting seems to be common practice for adopted kids of color. Yet and still, so many adopt internationally rather than enter into the black/mixed race US adoption programs. This nags at me as well. Is it easier to raise a Chinese girl than a black/Latino girl? Or is it that with adoption abroad there is less of a chance of the birthmother changing her mind and the adoptive parents can feel more secure in their adoption? I’m really curious.
But for now, I’d better go watch a couple of lessons in Scrap Tutor so that I can get past my paralysis and make The Best Profile Ever. And tomorrow we create The Best Video Introduction Ever! Hmmm…
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This has been very interesting story how scrapping is embedded with a noble cause
This was very useful post. I get more knowledge about scrapping embedded.
Hi,
you wrote this post over 4 years ago. You’ve got a beautiful young daughter. Obviously your scrapbooking experience was a success, or at least contributed to the adoption.
Did you enjoy the experience, or stay with it?
.-= Discount Scrapbooking Supplies´s last blog ..DoFollow, CommentLuv, KeywordLuv Friendly Site =-.
I’m sorry to say that I’m too much the perfectionist to stay with scrapbooking…at least paper scrapbooking. I have a ton of supplies, a cool case, scissors, elements and assorted goodies all gathering dust. I do better with digital work but tend to make one page but not an entire book. I’m into my photography now. I know…such a disappointment!
Even our adoption profile ended up being done by a graphic designer since I was too wigged out about it looking just right.
Thanks for visiting!