Adoption Life books: When You Don’t Have Much Information
Posted on August 25, 2008
Filed Under Adoption |
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Making a life book may seem a bit daunting. As you collect the information you have about your child’s life before he or she came to live with you, it may seem discouraging that so little information exists
Adoptive families vary in the extent of information they may have about birthmother of their child. While some families actually have the birth mother over to baby sit the child occasionally, others meet at a park for a few hours each year. Other families have no relationship with the birth family, perhaps even nothing more than a name on paper if that.
Many families have two or more adopted children and the relationships of the different birthmoms with the family vary. One birthmom may be very involved, while others have no contact at all. When this happens, oftentimes a birthmom of one child will go out of her way send notes or small gifts to the sibling of the child to make sure each child feels included and loved.
When you have an open relationship with your child’s birth mom you may be able to get any information you wish for your child’s adoption scrapbook album. The birth mom may even be enthusiastic to lend a hand to help write down information or answer questions to help your child have a remarkable book.
If you are an adoptive mom without a lot of information about your child’s birth or birth family-if any at all-don’t fret. You will still design an fantastic life book that helps your child understand his or her history.
For example, one of the most essential pages of the life book is about the biological mother, but you may not even have a photograph of her. Be sure to include a quotation or poem about how birth moms may feel when making the adoption choice for their child. Then write something for the book like, “Did you know that birth moms and dads give their special DNA to their children. I’ll be your beautiful smile and dark eye lashes came from your mom!”
It’s hard for most people to imagine, but many adoptive parents don’t even know the birthdate of their child or where he or she was born. Rather than writing, “We don’t know the date of your birth” in your child’ adoption album, journal something along the lines of, “We believe you were born during the winter of 2005 some time because when you came to the orphanage you weighed about the same as the other children born about that time.”
Don’t forget that it’s not the amount of information that will make your album complete, but the love and effort that you put into the adoption book that your child will notice most. As your child grows older and asks more questions about his place of origin, you can do research together to help answer his questions. But don’t put off creating an adoption life book because you don’t have all the information you wish you had. Children love reading about themselves and they even enjoy making up their own stories to fill in some of the blanks.
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