Do THIS To Match Your Private Adoption Quickly with An Adoption Agency

Did you know that two factors drive the speed of private adoption, especially if you are trying to adopt a baby through an adoption agency?  The first is if your adoption profile creates an emotional connection, and the second is the sheer number of people viewing your profile who are considering adoption.  In this blog post, I will share with you how to determine if your profile makes an emotional connection and is optimized to help you match with expectant parents or if it is holding you back. 

Stefanie and Jeremy’s Story

As we get started, I wanted to share a quick story about a client of mine.  Stefanie and Jeremy had been trying to privately adopt a baby with an adoption agency for over two years when we first met.  Stefanie showed up in my direct messages on Facebook and shared with me how worried she was that their profile had been shown about 100 times over the course of their two years of waiting, and they had not matched.  She shared how she was jumping at every phone call and that horrible sinking feeling every time it wasn’t the adoption agency calling with a match. She was convinced that something was wrong with her adoption profile, which kept her from matching.  She asked me to review what she had created within her adoption agency’s required template to see if I had any suggestions.  

The instant I looked at her profile, I could see that she made the most common mistake when creating an adoption profile. She told every single detail about their life which was confusing to the reader. I could quickly tell that she wasn’t creating an emotional connection in her profile.  Stefanie’s profile inspired me to build The Emotional Connection Builder Framework™.  

The Emotional Connection Builder Framework™. 

Over the past several years, I have proven time and time again that having a profile that creates an emotional connection will help you match your adoption faster.  So let’s look at what that means and how you do it.

There are three steps to making an emotional connection in your adoption profile:

1. Get clear on what information to share 

2. Determine what information not to share (what is too much)

3. Paint a clear picture of what life is like in your family

Before we talk about each of these, if you are feeling those nervous butterflies in your stomach thinking about the profile you have created or the one you need to create with your agency, take a big deep breath and know that I am here to help!  I can help you edit your existing profile as I did for Stefanie and Jeremy, who matched within two months of our working together, or I can help you create your adoption profile in your adoption agency required template as I did for Shelly and Louis, who matched in less than a month after working together.  Either way, I have your back friend. You are not alone. If you want to learn more about how we can work together, set up a time to speak with me 1:1.

Get clear on what information to share. 

The first step is to get clear on what information to share about your family. I shared a little bit earlier that when I looked at Stephanie's profile, she had shared everything about her family, which is perfectly normal. You want to share everything with expectant families because you might feel like you don't know which details are most important to them, which is going to be the tipping point or the deciding factor of why they will choose your family versus another family. So I know that that is a natural inclination, and believe me, I found the same thing. The very first time I did our adoption profile, I answered all the questions that the agency gave me and then tried to cram in every little thing that I thought would be important to her everything to the fact that we're Steelers fans, the fact that my husband loves the Yankees, and I love the Mets, all types of different little details like that, and about our travels and education plans and all of these ideas that we had for our family. But when I took a step back and looked at the profile that came back from the agency, even in my journey, I saw that it was just a heap of information, and I realized that it would make someone short circuit and overload on and not be able to get a sense of who you are because there's just too much clutter in the way.

Determine what information not to share (what is too much)

The next piece of this framework is determining what not to share. You see, there are some critical foundational things that expectant parents share with me that they are looking for in your profile. And all of the profile companies out there, they all have their spin on that. But I've spent over 1000 hours speaking with expectant families to understand what is important to them. And there are some essential details that they are looking for. But more than anything, they are looking for what I call the third step, which is having a clear picture of who you are as a family. 

Paint a clear picture of what life is like in your family

When you combine all three of these steps and think about them as one holistic picture, understanding who you are as a family is like reading a bedtime story. When an expectant mother is looking through these profiles, whether it be books, websites, adoption videos, or whatever it may be, she's looking through all of these different pieces about your family. She is looking for that story of what life is like in your family, and what life will be like for this child in your family.

When I talk with expectant parents, she can very clearly close her eyes and tell me exactly what she sees for this child's life. I see them playing in the backyard on a swing set. I see them traveling the world, I see them being in a home that puts faith and God first, that puts education above playtime. She has these different criteria in her mind, and there are no one specific criteria that does kind of go across every single expected family that I've spoken with. But the one common denominator is that she wants to feel like she is choosing the life she wants for this child. Often, the life that she doesn't feel equipped to provide for this child for a multitude of reasons, not just financial. But she is looking to fulfill this dream that she has of their life. That's why it is so critical that the story of who you are comes through that clear picture you paint in the third step of the emotional connection builder framework. 

Does Your Current Adoption Profile Fit This Framework?

Now, I know this may seem confusing or a little overwhelming or scratchy. Are you thinking if the profile you already have today fits that bill? Or how do you even begin to do that? Trust me, my friend, there is a replicable process that you follow you answer questions. And then you have a profile expert who joins at your side and reviews every single word, picture, and video to make sure you worry that you are creating an emotional connection with expectant parents. 

I can tell you time and time again, this is the difference that I see in those families that match in less than a year versus those families that don't. If you're like Stephanie and Jeremy and you've been waiting for a couple of years, or like another one of my clients, Shelly and Lewis, who were working with an agency as well, and we work together, and within less than a month they matched with their expected family. Or, if you're self-matching, I had the G family, they self-matched with a baby boy in less than six months. So it doesn't matter how you're matching or what type of restrictions you have on your adoption journey. It is possible to match your adoption quickly when working with an agency or whomever else if your adoption profile creates an emotional connection with expectant parents. So no matter how you're matching, if you need help, my friend, I'm just a message away. Send me a message on Facebook.

Hi, I Am Amanda

I am an adoption profile expert on a mission to teach you how to adopt and help you create and share your family's story more affordably!