Creating A Lifebook: A Lasting Legacy For Your Adopted Child

by Caroline Lensbower

The idea of putting together a lifebook for your child may seem overwhelming. I hope that the following information will be of help to you in making the process easier.

First, understand this… there isn't a wrong way to do a lifebook. The lifebook you put together will be just right as you will engineer it, including what you most want your child to know about their life before and after they became a part of your family. At some point, your child may wish to add to it as well. There are some fairly strong points of view out there about what a lifebook must include or how it should be focused. Personally, I think just as our children come from different backgrounds and situations and join our lives in different ways, lifebooks need to be individual expressions, not any set form. I think if you can make yourself believe there isn't a way you can do it wrong, then it will be easier for you to get started and you will find you are doing it just "right" for your child.

Second, a lifebook need not be just one book. It is really more of a concept. I have done my children's lifebooks in different volumes. One volume for the adoption process - what we did during the wait, the pics we received, some of the standard baby book stuff that happened before they arrived home, etc. Then they each have a volume of our visits to meet them for the first time. Next comes the volume which encompasses their homecoming. Then they have volumes starting chronologically from the time they joined our family. Yes, that is a lot of books and you may not have so many. Remember, I love to scrapbook, so I do a lot of pages. I just share how I have done ours and that while the whole set of albums together is their "lifebook", it isn't all in one book.

Third, if your child is old enough to participate in helping to put together their lifebook, encourage them to do so. It is great way for open up lines of communication about how they feel about having been adopted, feelings they may have about their birthfamily, etc. Plus, it is a fun thing to do as a family.

Here are some tips to help you on your way…

1. For those of you who are starting this process at the beginning of your adoption journey, good for you! You will likely have a little more time to get your lifebook planned out and underway before your child comes home. A smart approach as we know once those our little ones are underfoot it is hard to find the time to work on them. And besides, after waiting so long thru the adoption process, we just want to spend all the time with them we can. So, if you can start early, at least planning it out, you are wise to do so.

I recommend you invest in a journal. Truly it can be just a little notebook where you can make notes of things you want to include in the lifebook as you think of them during the adoption process. You can also use this system for making notes during your trips to visit or bring your child home. I recommend making notes as you go, periodically thru-out your trip. It will be a really emotionally wonderful experience (and tiring) so try to sneak in a few minutes each day to document the highlights of the trip and your experience that you want to be sure to remember and include in your lifebook. Be sure to include your feelings.

When you actually sit down to do your lifebook pages, then your journaling information will be already put together and you can use it as a reference. Some families send email updates home from their trip to let family & friends know how things are going. (We have friends who did this and it was so much fun to read their daily updates and share vicariously in their experience). If you do this, be sure to include your own email on the address list, so you can print them all out once you are home. They would make a great addition to a lifebook.

I also recommend you think about saving mementos from your trip that you may want to use in your child's lifebook. Some people buy postcards from their child's country, some save ticket stubs, etc. Just save whatever you think you might use. You can dispose of what you don't later. Take lots of pictures. Where you can, take pictures of signs with area/place names on them. It is quicker than writing it all down at the time.

2. If you are starting your lifebook once your child is home, don't despair. I recommend you still purchase that notebook. Try to find some time where you can think back and remember your trip and what you want to include in your lifebook. Write that down so it will be available when you do your lifebook. It may help you to pull out pictures or mementos you saved from your trip when you do this. Look at them, feel them, take yourself back to those amazing days and write down the memories. The when you sit down to work on your lifebook pages, you will have a written guideline to go by.

3. Use acid-free, archival safe top-loading albums. I highly recommend you use an album that is top-loading or pages that are top-loading. This simply means you put the pages you complete in the album from the top. The beauty of this system is that you can work out of order. If you find something you want to add to a section of your child's lifebook, you can easily rearrange the pages. With spiral bound or some other album types, this is very hard to so. The other benefit is that eventually your child may want to do their own lifebook pages. Using top-loading albums, you will be able to add their pages into the lifebook you have created for them, unless they want their own album, of course.

The following are ideas to include in your child's lifebook grouped by category. This list isn't intended to be rule to follow, just some ideas for you to choose from or get your creative juices going…

The Adoption Process & General Baby Book Type:

Why you decided to adopt
Why you chose a specific country, etc
The process you went thru
Those who really helped you with the process
Copies of paperwork that you might want to include
The referral call & what you did when you got it
Referral photos & other photos you receive (be sure to write down all those emotions you felt when you saw the photos)
Medical exam info
What you did during the wait to keep busy
Your child's name - who named them, significance, how decided upon, etc
Their room you fixed up for them
Preparing your home

Family trees (both your family tree and birthfamily info & pictures, if any is known). If you want to wait before sharing more detailed birthfamily info with your child you could put these pages in a separate private album and let your child decide if they want to add them to their album, etc or you add them once you have discussed these issues with your child, etc. Whatever you are most comfortable with. Personally, I have this info in my children's albums already and hope to discuss it as we they get older. I guess I am trying to show them that I view their birthfamily as part of their lives, so it is acceptable for them to do so too. However, if they indicate they are uncomfortable with the info being included at some point, I will separate it out until they want it added back in. You should do what feels right for your family. Here again, top loading albums will make it easier to add or remove this information.

Other general babybook info

If you have any picture of your child during the process that you received later. For instance, we sent disposable cameras to our children's foster families to take pics of them during the wait. We received these cameras when we traveled to bring our children home. I included those pics. I had originally done these in a separate album, but have since switched them to be in the same album of what we did during our wait - kind of like a "while we were doing this… you were doing this" type of approach.

I also included information about their birthcountry during this timeframe - significant events, stats on what life was like at the time of their adoption, relevant articles, etc. I was able to find an online newspaper for our children's birth countries and was able to print out a year of news headlines (month by month) for the years they were born. I want them to have a sense of what life was really like in their birth country at the time of their adoption, so they may have a greater understanding when they are older of why their birthfamilies made the decisions they did. Life may be different in those countries 20 years from now.

Travel:

Have someone snap of pic of you ready to embark on your journey to meet or bring your child home. It is so fun to look back at those big smiles on your faces.

Travel itinerary
Ticket stubs
Brochures of places you visited
Something from the hotels you stayed at, etc.
Notable events & people from your trip
Pictures from your trip
Pictures of the orphanage, caretakers, foster family, foster family home, birth location
Your first family picture (have someone take one of you as soon as you can after you are joined with your child)

Your feelings on finally meeting your child (I enlisted my husband's help on a page where I wrote my feelings on finally meeting our children and he wrote his. It will be a special page for our children some day. It was also really funny to see the differences. Mine talked about how beautiful they were, what I wanted to give them in life, etc. and my husband's listed things like I hope he likes us and I hope I don't drop him.)

Information your child's foster family or caretakers share about your child. If you can, ask them about their favorite memories of your child, wishes they have for them, things they want your child to know about the time they spent with them, etc. We videotaped this (with our foster family's permission). I included it in our lifebooks and the video will be nice for our children to have too.

Adjustment period
Getting to know each other
Areas you toured & impressions, etc
Anything you want to include about your trip
Your court appearances or visa appointments

Have someone snap a picture of you holding that visa packet - it is your ticket to bring your child home and the final step in the process - the one we wait so long to reach

How it felt to be finally done with the process

Homecoming/Once home:

Meeting family & friends
Your child in their new home
Meeting pets
Homecoming celebrations
Readoption/Citizenship procedures/ceremonies
Reflections on parenthood
Wishes for your child's future

The content is what is most important and will be the most meaningful to your child, especially having in writing your feelings about having them as your child, how special the experiences have been for you, how very wanted they are, etc.. Of course, everyone wants the book to look good too. I would recommend you put your most effort into the content and do the best you can on the asthetics. I hope my designs will help you in the creative end and save you time to focus on the content. I also strive to create designs to help you maintain a multi-cultural focus as the available products are fairly limited . If interested, you can find my custom designs at www.CarolinesCollection.com.

My best advice is have fun putting together your child's lifebook, savor those wonderful memories as you do, & share it with your child.