"We Just Want You to Know.. Our Journey to Becoming a Family" by Andrea Yee

Being an adoptive mom, I was dreading the time I had to begin disclosing her adoption to her.  I learnt from another mom that she started practicing her disclosure when she bathed or changed her baby.  What a fantastic idea!

My baby girl was then about 9 months old and I decided to try it out.  Boy was it a disaster!  First of all, the vocabulary:  birth mom, forever mommy, put up for adoption vs give up for adoption, etc, just couldn't flow smoothly.  I was saying it all wrong!  How challenging was it to use positive words!  When I did finally feel comfortable with the sentences I was saying, I wrote them down.  And the list started to grow. And became more refined.

For my daughter, I wanted to cement my love for her with my words to affirm that though we are an adoptive family, we ARE a family; just brought together differently.  So that was when the idea of publishing a book struck.

At adoptive parents support groups, we are all encouraged to create a *Life Book for each of our kids.  Most of the parents I spoke to were often stuck - how do I begin one? I don't know where to start!.  I had always had my thoughts penned on good ole Word, inserting pics where applicable.  Then another idea came! Why don't I make a disclosure-cum-Life-Book for adoptive families?!

In "We Just Want You to Know... Our Journey to Becoming a Family", one half of the book dedicates itself to affirming the child of his adoptive parents’ love and affirmation and the other half serves as a *Life Book where pictures, notes and drawings may be pasted to customise the book to make it the child’s very own.   

The book starts off with a vow for us to affirm our child

 

Difficult moments such as the yearning for a child, celebratory moments as the family wait for him to arrive and the acknowledgement of his birthparents are addressed; allowing the opportunities for adoptive parents to elaborate as and when necessary throughout the child’s growing years.

 

This page is for you to affix photos & notes

Each page is illustrated with animals, birds and insects to signify each family unit which makes it relevant to all races, religions and family make-up.

The aims of this book are:

1. To encourage disclosure, especially for adoptive parents who do not know how to begin and have not done so yet - this book is the perfect tool for them
2. For adoptive parents and their child(ren) to share and celebrate this unique unity whose bonds can be strengthened through precious moments shared together
3.  Makes a great gift from friends and family

It is printed with non-toxic ink on glossy board paper specially catered for the handling of little ‘gentle’ hands.

Price:  S$24.00 / US18

If you would like to order a copy of this book, please email me directly at:  wejustwantyoutoknow@gmail.com.  Postage to anywhere in the world is on me : ) Gift wrapping service available too.

*Life Book: A pictorial and written representation of the life of a child, which is designed to help the child better understand make sense of its unique background and history. Although there is no required content for a life book, some information that it might include would be information about birthparents, other members of the extended birth family, birthplace and date. The life book might be put together by a social worker, foster and/or adoptive parents or even the birthparents or members of the birthparents' extended family. (taken from:  http://glossary.adoption.com/life-book.html)