The Family Profile

Your Letter and Photo Collage

By Jessica Williams

Caldwell says the most important things to remember when writing your letter are honesty and brevity. "Speak from the heart and read it out loud ... keep it short and sweet," she says.

Once you've finished the letter, leave it alone. Don't get stuck trying to make it perfect. Try to keep a lot of your original sentiment in the letter.

"It actually took about three hours to write the main first draft of the letter," says Nevara. "After that, we probably continued to work on it here and there for weeks while we were in the process of having the entire profile put together but they were just obsessive tweaks."

Now that you've finished the letter and gathered your photos, it's time to compile everything. The simple cut-and-paste method works great for the photos. Arrange your photos with hand-written captions. Take them to a local copy center, and get multiple color copies made of each page. Keep one as a keepsake and at least two for the adoption agency. Print out several copies of the letter.

A professional can help you compile your profile digitally and have it printed and bound. This method allows you to "clean up" photos and create special effects, publish your profile on the Internet and easily update your profile anytime.

Profiling yourself and your family can be intimidating, but it's a fantastic tool to help you on your road to adoption. Above all, "relax and be yourself," says Nevara. "The content has to be true to who you are because that's what will connect you with a birth parent."