Avoid These 3 Adoption Mistakes
There are three common mistakes that most hopeful adoptive families are making. And they don't even know they're making it, and it ends up costing them extra time and money in their adoption journey.
I know this because I'm an adoption coach that helps other hopeful adoptive families learn how to adopt. And I also help them create and share their adoption profiles, so that they can match faster.
Okay, so no matter where you are, in your adoption journey, you're either feeling confused, overwhelmed, or both. And I remember feeling the exact same way. As a matter of fact, I remember writing in my journal, that I spent three hours researching different things about adoption, and just ended up in the exact same spot with the exact same questions.
I felt like everything I read, pointed to one direction, but then I would read another blog post or read another forum, because it was, you know, 2015, when I was starting my adoption journey, and things really were pointing back to the same direction, everything was so dang confusing.
So I made the decision to hire an adoption attorney, and to sit down and ask him all the questions. And of course, he was willing to do that at a rate of $500 an hour to answer every single question I had.
And really, that's what started my journey and creating videos and podcasts like this for you, so that I could share what I've learned in the adoption journey to make it easier for you, and honestly, to make it more affordable for you when it comes to adoption.
So these mistakes that I'm sharing with you are actual mistakes and patterns that I've spotted within my own client base, as they've come to me.
So there are three common mistakes that you can avoid in your adoption journey, especially if you are still trying to adopt in 2023.
Mistake #1 - Wasting Time in the Adoption Journey
Mistake number one is wasting too much time. Now you can waste time and every single stage of the adoption journey, I have a philosophy that I use with my clients, where we're really talking about putting ourselves in the driver's seat of our adoption journey.
Now, the very first area that I see a lot of people wasting time is spending months and months and months trying to figure out which type of adoption is right for them.
Now, listen, my friend, I know this is a really critical step as all of them are in the adoption journey. And that if you start with the wrong type of adoption, it can cost you extra money and time, for sure. But you do need to use a framework that helps you understand each type of adoption, and then quickly decide so that you can move on through the process.
The second area where I see people wasting more time, is deciding what type of partners they really need, and what partner is the right one for them in their adoption journey.
Again, partners are really important. If you have the wrong partner, then you're not getting emotionally supported, you might be getting taken financially advantage of as you go through your journey.
Like there are a whole host of reasons why you want to find the right partner. There really is an old adage of trust your gut, right? So you want to trust someone that obviously has the experience that you've done the due diligence and ask the appropriate questions to, but you do have to rely a little bit on gut feeling. And whether or not you feel like you really connect with this partner.
But spending months and months and months interviewing partners, my friend, that's just adding extra time to your adoption journey unnecessarily.
Once you've chosen a partner, you're going to move on into the home-study phase. And a lot of people think, oh my god, the home-study is so scary. It is so rotten and awful. And well, there are rotten and awful parts of it.
But it really isn't as scary as you think it is. I have tons of videos and podcasts where I've actually interviewed social workers who conduct home-study, so you can read and watch those. But in which is really, really important.
But there's some fundamental things that you have to do in the home-study. Just get some paperwork together, answer some questions, and be prepared for an interview where someone actually comes into your house and has a conversation with you.
Now while you are doing your home-study though, this is the phase where you really want to be focused on your adoption profile. Now, I will say that this is probably one of the biggest time sucks that I see a lot of my clients making as they come to me and they're like, Okay, I'm ready to do my adoption profile. Now, I'm home-study approved. But guess what, friend, the clock is already ticking on your own study.
Your home-study, in most cases is only going to be good for a year. It does vary by state. But if your home-study is only good for a year, and you're just now starting your adoption profile, it typically is going to take you anywhere from call it six to eight weeks to create your adoption profile. That means you've burned two months of being live and sharing your desire to adopt and sharing your profile with people. That's a lot of time and that equates to a lot of money.
When you consider that home-studies depending upon where you are can run anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000. That is not only wasted time, but it is wasted money.
The next area that I see people wasting a lot of time researching is how to share their profile. We're going to talk a little bit more about that in another mistake here. But sharing your profile is critical in there are some basic patterns that my clients follow in order to match their adoptions in a year that you really want to focus on in order to actually be sharing your profile.
So again, the first mistake is just wasting time at each stage of the adoption journey. And I know on the surface, it may not seem like oh, it's not that big of a deal, because it's just a few weeks here a few weeks there, but believe it or not, those few weeks can actually add a lot of extra time to your adoption journey.
And there is a more efficient way to go and follow a proven path so that you can actually achieve your dreams of adopting. And most of my clients do that within a year when they follow a very, very efficient path.
Mistake #2 - Wasting Time with Adoption Profile
Okay, so now let's move on to mistake number two. The second area that I see most hopeful adoptive families wasting time is their adoption profile.
And typically how this shows up is by someone messaging me either in the my adoption coach Facebook group, or in my DMs or sending me an email, and they say, Hey, I've been waiting with an agency attorney or consultant, or maybe we've been trying to self match for a year or two. And it's just not happening. And I don't understand what's going on.
The first question I always ask is, may I see your adoption profile, and nine times out of 10, those adoption profiles are not making an emotional connection.
And as harsh as this may sound, if your adoption profile does not make an emotional connection, she is scrolling to the next family just like that. She is really looking for something that creates that instant connection that instant, like, oh, I want to learn more about them. Hmm, they seem pretty interesting. Maybe they're the right family, for me and for my child. And if they're not having that moment with your adoption profile, they're just moving to the next one in a stack.
And really, it comes down to having a clear and concise story of who your family is. And we really want to use stories because stories are going to light up different areas of the brain.
So let me give you a specific example. Okay, I had this person show up in my inbox the other day, let's just call her Joanne. So Joanne said,
“Hey, I have been waiting two years. And I don't understand what is going on and why these other families are being picked. My particular agency is seeing about five to 10 adoptions per month. And my profile is being shown numerous times a month, but I'm just not being picked.”
So I looked at her profile. And I said, How did you build your profile?
“Well, my agency built it for me, they sent me a list of questions, I answered the questions, gave them some pictures and sent it back. And then they handled it from there. “
And really, that is the first big red flag, my friend, if your agency is just having you answer a list of questions, and you're not being intentional about the stories that you're using in answering those questions, that is not going to help you make an emotional connection.
Because you see, when you're just answering questions, you're just giving information about yourself. And when she is reading that via a book or on her phone or on a website or even watching the video, she's just taking in information about you.
So in that instance, she's just using two areas of her brain. She's using the area of her brain that takes in information and the area of her brain that like, categorizes and stores that information.
Instead, if you are using those questions as an opportunity to really tell a story about yourself. So instead of just saying you know I like the color red, why do you like the color red, right, giving some more information about yourself, then the reader or the viewer of that information on the receiving end is actually using seven areas of their brain to take on that information. And that makes you more memorable.
So when you're just sharing here's a day in our life and you're just showing clips of videos about your family, or you just have a once you know sentence like I liked the color red, then the that is not making you memorable. And if you are not memorable, she's moving on to the next stack.
Now even when you are memorable, you may not really hit it off with her you may you know maybe you are dog people and she is a cat person and that's an immediate no for her. There's still that possibility. But when you are more memorable you are making it past that first cut my friend. And that allows you actually, to save time in your adoption journey, because you have to be really clear about that.
And I know this not only because I've worked in marketing for 25 plus years now, and some of the biggest brands in the world have taught me how to make our commercials more memorable so that people will buy products from those companies.
But I've also spent over 3000 hours talking with expectant families to understand why they pick certain families and why they don't pick other families. And the gist of what it comes down to, is that they made a connection with somebody, because they saw a story that really sparked interest in them sparked intrigue, and sparked them to want to know more about them.
And nine times out of 10, they can tell me the exact story that made them want to go learn more about that family. And that, my friend is how you save time in your adoption journey by having an emotionally connected profile, which is why I created the emotionally connected adoption pathway, which is like a step by step process that I walk with my clients through so that they can really create an adoption profile that's going to help them match faster.
Mistake #3 - Not Sharing Profile Enough
All right, the third and final mistake that I see most hopeful adoptive families making is they're not sharing their profile enough.
Now, I know that may sound strange, because you may be thinking, “Wait a minute, I'm matching with an agency or an attorney, or even a consultant, or I'm self matching, and I'm sharing my profile every single day,” you may still not be sharing your profile enough with the right audience.
So again, there's kind of a divergent path here, if you will, that we need to talk about. But they both really kind of come down to this idea of putting yourself in the driver's seat of your adoption. So even if you've hired some other company whose job it is to match you, you need to put yourself in the driver's seat of your adoption, and be sharing your adoption profile more.
And I know that may sound really counterintuitive, right? You may be thinking, but I've paid them a lot of money. And it's their job to you know, to match me. And that's fine. If you want to sit around and wait for that day to come. And you feel really confident that your adoption profile is creating an emotional connection, then by all means my friends sit around and wait for that day to come.
But on those days that you're free, you're weary and tired and just ready to be parenting this child that you are screaming about that, you know, you need to be sharing your adoption profile more.
And that can come in simple ways. Like you know, sharing it with friends and family, sharing a link to a website via email and just passing along. Hey, if you know of anybody that's considering adoption, or that, you know, might consider adoption, please share this link with them.
You can share it such that they're talking directly to the agency if that's what you're doing. And if you're self matching, obviously, make sure you understand what's legal in your state when it comes to self matching and and, and how to share your adoption profile. But if you're self matching, you want to be thinking and of new and different ways that you can be sharing your adoption profile.
Could you be putting a flyer up at a laundromat? I know it sounds ridiculous. But I've had a client match that way. Do you want to be passing out business cards at an your OBGYN office or other OBGYN office? Again, I know it sounds ridiculous, but we actually had a match through that my OBGYN knew we were hoping to adopt had our business card with our phone number on it and gave it to someone who came in and was considering placing the child for adoption.
Again, you just never know. And so you really want to have a just kind of an open sharing policy. And make sure that you have a vehicle like a business card or a flyer or something along those lines. That is an appropriate way for someone to come across your adoption profile.
But you want to be sharing that adoption profile as many times and as much as you possibly can. Because that is what is ultimately going to lead you to making a connection using some social media calendar where you're just haphazardly posting things that don't you know, tell stories about your family that doesn't create an emotional connection. And that doesn't engage with the different learning styles that people have is not going to be the way that you ultimately match my friend.
Now I know there are some really cheap and inexpensive resources out there. But no, you also get what you pay for, right? You really need to put some time and intention in it. And you need to follow proven patterns that people have used to match more than just one time, right?
So I've matched over 1000 couples now at this point in their self matching journeys and help them adopt their baby to bring them home. And following those proven patterns is really what's going to help you when it comes to sharing In your profile, and what's going to help you match faster.
So there you have it. The three most common mistakes that I see hopeful adoptive families make so the in a proven way that you can follow to avoid those mistakes.
Listen, my friend, I know adoptions really hard, it's confusing and overwhelming. That's the reason why I make videos like this to try to make it less overwhelming for you.
So if you have any questions, remember I'm here to support you. All you have to do is drop a comment below ask your question. I'm happy to answer it. And I really think this video will help you so check it out.
