I love the idea that a local birthmother shared with me about the scrapbook she and her daughter’s adoptive mother are building together. While many birthmothers or adoptive mothers create scrapbooks or lifebooks for their children individually, this process is unique and has created a way for the two mothers of this one little girl to bond.

Monica* and her daughter’s adoptive mother, Kristy*, are creating their daughter’s (Jenifer) scrapbook/lifebook together. Monica and Kristy didn’t have a whole lot of time to get to know one another before Jenifer* was born as Monica didn’t decide to make an adoption plan until a week before Jenifer was born. They soon discovered though, that they both loved scrapbooking.

Monica shared with Kristy that she really wanted to create some pages for a scrapbook/life book for Jenifer about her birth family. Kristy loved the idea and offered to help so during the time that Kristy had to remain in Monica’s state waiting to be allowed to cross state lines with the baby, Monica and Kristy worked on five pages (ten if you count the actual front and backs) that had various things about Monica and other members of her family. When Kristy got home she created five pages about Jenifer’s adoptive family for the same book in the same fashion that she and Monica had create the first pages.

Then, they decided that when Kristy sent pictures to Monica each month, she would choose a few and send doubles of those. Monica would then take the doubles and create a scrapbook page with them. If Jenifer looked especially like someone in her birth family or if the picture reminded Monica of a childhood memory or something, she’d write that on the page with the picture. She created the pages in her own unique style.

Kristy would then create a scrapbook page using the same pictures with her own thoughts, memories, and of course, her own unique scrapbooking style. Then at each visit they’d share the scrapbook pages with one another and add each of them to Jenifer’s book. At each visit, together they scrapbook pictures from the previous visit.

Monica says that she has really enjoyed working on this together with Kristy and that they plan to keep it up as long as possible. They both think that this scrapbook, from the perspective of each of her mothers, will one day be an awesome keepsake and testament of their open adoption relationship.

What an amazing idea! Thank you for sharing it with us Kristy and Monica!


* Names have been changed to protect their privacy.

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Photo Credit

To read more about creating a scrapbook or lifebook for your child, click here.