Now, you’re ready, Page 2

Be Proactive

Okay, so it’s not as much fun as sex, but if we take the pro from procreation and add a dollop of active, we end up with ‘proactive’ … your word to live by in this phase of your adoption process.

Proactive: adjective
Creating or controlling a situation by causing something to happen rather than responding to it after it has happened.

It may not sound cuddly, but grabbing the bull by the horns at this stage is without doubt perfectly acceptable mommy and daddy behavior. The list of things a proactive family hoping to adopt can do may look daunting, but daunted is not the look you’re going for. It’s time to buck up.

Learning to be your own biggest fan may be your first step to parenthood. (This is good practice for when your kids are teens, by the way, and are trying their best to convince you that you’re WAY not cool and should probably hide yourself from sight until they’re at least 21.)

Since your Homestudy autobiography rave of all strong points is done, you may want to refer to it and remind yourself of the wonderful person you are. You’ll next want to figure out ways to put that image of the real you about to increase the likelihood that someone will learn about you, then choose you to parent their child.

Your own BBC (Baby Broadcasting Connection)

Networking

It’s good in life, in business and in adoption. The more people that know what you’re looking for, the more likely someone with a corresponding agenda, one that could dovetail with yours, will learn you exists.

Getting the word out, putting out feelers, making a trail of breadcrumbs lead to your door …the word that you’re a hopeful adoptive family looking to welcome a baby into your home as soon as possible … calls in images of serendipity, destiny, providence, karma, fate and kismet. Adoption lore is full of stories of chance meetings between hopeful adoptive parents and people contemplating placement that come about because of clues the adopters gave about their dream.

Custom Tee Shirts with hoping-to-adopt messages worn, pins made up with a similar message gracing the lapels of friends and family, business cards including contact information handed out freely, adoption notices placed in newspapers and magazines, any one of these could be the catalyst for a conversation that starts at, “I see that you are …” and ends up with a lifetime commitment to love the same child.

The Virtual Adoption Networking Card

Adoption.Com provides a virtual adoption networking card you customize, then e-mail to friends and family. Those folks can then send it on to as many of their contacts as possible, and so on and so forth. The potential for reaching many, many people is huge, and as with all in this admittedly shotgun approach to letting the world know you’re hoping to adopt, the more the potentially merrier.

Pretend you’re Leo Burnett

Who?

Leo Burnett is the advertising brain who came up with such illustrious American icons as Tony the Tiger, Charlie Tuna and the Jolly Green Giant. Those guys didn’t get famous enough to be invited into millions of homes week after week, year after year, through someone jotting down a couple of details on a postcard, then tacking it to the notice board at the office.

Thought and creativity, as well as effective use of the tools available, grabbed attention and kept it, and got people thinking that the tiger and the tuna and the giant were pretty good to have around.

Hopeful Adoptive Parent Profiles

No, you’re not selling frozen peas. You’re doing something much more important: putting together your Hopeful Adoptive Parent Profile … the multi-media packet that tells expecting parents putting together an adoption plan all there is to know about you.

Whether you’re hoping to adopt independently or using an agency or facilitator, your profile is likely to be the first view of you an expectant mother will have. You know that old saying, “You only have one chance to make a first impression?” Well, this could be it.

If you knew who would be seeing your profile, you could tailor it a bit by trying to put yourself in their shoes. You might try to stress certain aspects of yourself or your life or your home that you’d guess would appeal, and soft-pedal some that you think might meet with something less than approval.

But you don’t know who will be seeing your profile, and walking a mile in a specific maternity bra and sensible shoes is not an option.

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Credits: Sandra Hanks Benoiton