# Life Story Book



## Lauren (Jul 2, 2004)

Hi everyone,

My husband and I have just completed our prep course with Intercountry Adoption Centre (we plan to adopt from Guatemala) and are now waiting to be assigned a social worker for our homestudy.  We were told on the prep course that we could speed our homestudy up by starting to compile things now like our life story book, ecomap, etc.  I have some ideas for our life story book but would be really grateful if anyone would let me know the sort of things you included in yours and how you presented it, etc.

Thank you!

Lauren x


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## cindyp (Apr 7, 2003)

Hi Lauren

We were told a lot depended on the age of the child you were aiming for.  I assume as you are going overseas you are hoping to adopt a baby.  We were aiming ours at the under 5's and as suggested did not put loads and loads of photos in.  We just included photos of close family and friends, photos of the house and some local places of interest (like the park where we would take the children) with a brief description.  The photos should not show any clues as to location.  A lot of people decorate their books with cartoons or fun pictures to appeal to young children (unfortunately we were not that artistic due to incompetence   ).

I'm sure if you draft something together your SW should be able to advise you.

Cindy


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## superal (May 27, 2005)

Hi Lauren

We only did one life story book although we have adopted two children, DD was to young to understand a book but the one we did for our DS, who was nearly 4 when we adopted him, was really easy to do.

Like Cindy we put photos of ourselves inside the book, our pets, his new bedroom, the garden, a picture of the car but not showing the registration - we were told DS was mad about cars, that's why we put that one in!  A few simple words under each one, we were told by our SW to put under our names Mummy XXXX & Daddy XXXX.

We put all the photos inside a small photograph album which had fun animals on the front, it was really sweet and our DS has still got it, although now it's thrown at the top of his wardrobe!

Good luck

Andrea


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## TraceyH (Apr 14, 2004)

Hi Lauren

For our life book, we included photos of ourselves, the cars, the house (inside and out), extended family (mum, dad, sister etc) and close friends and their children.  I bought a few children's comics (Noddy and Fimbles etc) and cut out the characters, stuck them to the card, put a bit of glitter around them and lamiated them.  We put a brief explanation as to who each person was and also included personal comments from each person. We put the pages in a bright file.  It does sound very time consuming but it was very enjoyable.

The panel made very complimentary comments about our life book so I was chuffed that the hard work had paid off.

Good Luck.

Tracey


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## Lauren (Jul 2, 2004)

Thanks everyone for all your comments, its all really helpful and at least I now know we are on the right lines!  We are hoping to adopt a baby so obviously there will be a limit to how much they understand but I gather it can prove quite valuable for the foster family and perhaps even birth mother in Guatemala to look at and hopefully will be something our child will treasure as they get older.

I am not in the slightest artistic but I do have the help of 4 very creative step children so I'm sure between all of us and a bit of glitter and glue we can have some fun creating something interesting!

Lauren x


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## Boomerang girl (Jan 24, 2004)

hi lauren just an idea for baby adoptions- don't forget sensory elements such as smell.
you could soak a ribbon in your signature perfume then put it in the book.
cheers and good luck,
kylie
x


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## KarenM (Jul 30, 2002)

Lauren

Here's link to another thread that was started on this topic which contains some ideas of how to approach this part.

http://www.fertilityfriends.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,26151.0.html

Good luck
Karen x


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