Making Our Portfolio

The most fun and the most pressure that we felt during the adoption process is making our portfolio! I will start by explaining the portfolio and how it relates to the adoption process just because most people do not know. 

In the state of Illinois (and most states for that matter), it is the birth mothers right to choose a family during an adoption. The portfolio is a book that the prospective adoptive family creates for the mother to look at and ultimately keep that allows her to know the family better. When a birth mother gets in contact with an agency there is a matching sheet that the birth mother fills out or talks through and there is also a matching sheet that the adoptive family fills out. For us, the matching sheet discusses various items that you will accept or decline based on your desires in a child. There are columns regarding birth mother and father medical history everything from no history to known genetic illnesses. There are also columns for drug use (which I will discuss in a later blog post), openness in adoption sharing phone calls, meeting, letters, etc. There is a lot to the forms but this is excellent for 2 reasons 1. when a birth mother calls the agency/ lawyer they are able to give her the portfolios of parents willing to accept an adoption plan from this birth family and 2. it allows us as an adoptive family to be placed in an optimal and comfortable adoption plan. An adoptive parent example were this is beneficial is a family has waiting 18 months and gets a call about an infant available at the hospital. This infant has known special needs and low initial infant testing. If this family does not have the resources and support to accept a child with special needs this placement is not ideal for the infant or the family. It is a difficult decision for a  family to decide against creating a particular adoption plan so the agency protects the adoptive families by asking and getting detailed answers prior to a potential adoption so that they welfare of the child and the integrity of the family is foremost. 
Therefore when a birth mother calls the agency, she is given the portfolios of families that best relate to her situation and are ideal candidates for the welfare of the child. From the portfolios, the birth mother (father, family, etc) choose an adoptive family or sometimes several that they would like to meet. Once she has chosen a family, she keeps the book if she desires. We also have a hard copy of our book in our nursery so our child can grow up hearing the stories of Jason and I pre baby and look at exactly what his/ her mother saw and chose about us. 

Now onto the FUN STUFF
When creating the book, I started a pinterest account of course and looked at lots of blogs and public portfolios, design companies, and online agency portfolios. Then, I knew after all the pressure that is on this portfolio I needed some help. A clean eye. I am very creative and have a vision for things but I tend to get overwhelmed with details and have a poor filter. I contacted a past friend, Sylvia who made my wedding invitations and was in graphic design. She so graciously helped me and below is the book we created together. She has an ingenious mind, was extremely thorough with the writings, and edited and cleaned up all of my photos. She is a saving grace on this project. (Her final submission is the one you see below) Due to some editing needs by our agency and the desire for a Shutterfly looking book because of the appeal to birth mothers I modified the book into Shutterfly but kept with her overall version. Or at least I tried my best. So here is the online link. Our Shutterfly Book

I truly loved creating our portfolio. If anyone would need advice or assistance please let us know. We would love to help! Hope everyone enjoyed our portfolio!