Happy Valentine's Day!

We had a nice family day today.  Eric and I went on a date on Friday, which was really nice so today was spent all together as a family.  We opted not to go to church since I was too embarrassed.  I have to wear an eye patch on my eye for 24 hours before I go for an eye exam tomorrow.  I didn't really want all the extra attention and questions, so I made pancakes for the kids instead.

Then we went through the girls' stuff and started setting some things aside for the garage sale.  That was hard work, and the girls didn't take too keenly to the idea of getting rid of things.  We made them get rid of any toy that hasn't been played with for the last year.  You would think that those toys would be easy to get rid of, but no.  It was slightly traumatic for them.  We let them choose a few things that they really wanted to keep and that seemed to help.  They like having an organized room again!  Of course, they messed it up already ;o)

I have spent the evening going through all of my electronic photos, picking out the best ones for our profile.  That's hard!  I keep second guessing myself on which ones I should include.  I want to show plenty of them with the whole family so the expectant mother will see what loving parents Eric and I are, but I am afraid to show too many with us as a complete unit because I don't want to give the impression that we're a completed family and wouldn't have enough love to offer a new baby.  That is definitely not the case!  If anything, seeing all the photos of my girls as babies and growing up has just made me long for a new child all the more.

I still need to dig through my old pre-digital camera photos.  I want to include at least one photo from our wedding and one from when we were still in high school to show the history that Eric and I have.  Then it will be time to narrow the pictures down and get some printed off.  I think we'll head to the portrait studio soon too, since I do not have a recent photo of the four of us together or of Eric and I alone. 

Once I have all the photos ready to go, it will be time to start the verbiage of our profile book and the scrap booking.  The verbiage part will be the hardest, and its the part I'm dreading most.  How do I express into words how I feel about this adoption?  How do I convince  a mother to be that we are the right family to raise her child?  I want to avoid the cliche "You must be going through..." statements and the "this must be a difficult time in your life" junk.  It is obviously a hard time and not easy on anyone, ESPECIALLY the birth mother, and I think that seeing that stuff so much in profiles just makes it come off as insincere.

But, I also don't want to come off as insensitive either.  I keep thinking about how the birth mother must feel, and how hard it must be to be in her shoes.  There has to be a balance in communicating this empathy without sounding cheesy and / or patronizing.  This is the main reason I haven't started on the "Dear Birth Mother" letter.  I just don't know how to do it yet.  I don't even know how to start the blasted thing!  "Dear Birth Mother" sounds WAY too generic and to some, it can be considered insulting.  For one, the expectant mother is still pregnant, so she hasn't given birth yet, and she hasn't chosen to place the baby officially, so she's not a "birth mother" either. 

I feel like this profile is so important!  It's the main thing that will be the deciding factor in who chooses us to raise a baby.  It's the one little bit of control Eric and I have in this whole process, so I feel like it needs to be perfect.  I'm trying to avoid the mistake of trying to be all things to all people.  The main thing is that this profile needs to reflect the heart of our family so that we can communicate who we are, and find the perfect match for our family. 

This profile has been the most stressful thing about adoption so far.  Well, besides the money and the waiting....those are hard too.  Who am I kidding?!  This whole process is hard.  I long for the "easy" task of deciding to make a baby and BOOM you're pregnant.  Adoption is so very different from becoming a biological mother.  It will be worth it in the end, and I can't wait to tell my child as he/she grows up that Mommy and Daddy wanted him/her so badly that we did everything we could to find him/her and God brought him/her to us.  That is what makes all this process worth it.