Making Our Case

If Ryan had murdered me this weekend, it would have been a justifiable homicide. Really, it would have. I would have made a point to come back from the grave to encourage people to testify on his behalf, because I was such an anal retentive uber bitch.

You see, this weekend we started making our adoption profile.

The adoption profile is the first thing the birth mother sees about the potential adoptive family. It helps her form her first impressions, and decide if these could be the people she wants to raise the child she's carrying, or if they are total psychos that should rightfully remain barren. So, you can see why it's a little stressful to make one. I want it to be funny, but not too light, intelligent, but not eggheaded, and compassionate, but not patronizing. I want it to be so perfect that when the birth mother picks it up it vibrates in her hands and she hears angels singing. Unfortunately Ryan nixed the idea of putting a joy buzzer and a tiny digital music player inside, so that isn't going to happen... Still though, I want it to be as good as it can be though, and so I analyzed every decision that we made about it, and then second guessed them all.

This is where the defense could start making it's case.

Ryan really wanted to be helpful. He knew how I was worried, and wanted to make it easier. He picked out pictures, and inserted text, and worked for a long time on every page he did. And then I went back and changed everything he did. Well, not everything, but pretty much everything. I wasn't nice about it either. I tired to be, but I think at one point I yelled "are you kidding" when I looked at what he had done. I didn't mean to, but I did. My bitch training wheels had come off the crazy train.

One of the biggest "discussions" we had was over a picture of the dog. It was taken right after we first got her, and she was chewing on everything. Luke had been over and left one of his pacifiers behind, which Sally gleefully took as a sign it was hers. One of us wanted to include the picture that resulted thinking it would show we are fun. The other thought including it would show any potential birth mother that we consider child raising like having a dog.

I'll let you know how it all worked out after I read the comments...

In the end I like to think that our first draft of the adoption profile is a collaborative effort. Ryan picked out pictures I never would have thought to put in, and we both helped whittle down the text so that it is less about telling birth moms about our life, and more about showing it to them. Of course, we will probably have to rip it apart and redo it at least seven more times before it's ready to go.

Do you think they'll still let Ryan adopt if he's acquitted of murder? After all, he'll have a great profile to show for it...