Designing a life book for your adoptive child or foster child may seem overwhelming, especially when you don’t have a lot of information about your child’s life before he or she became a part of your family. One of the biggest stumbling blocks is getting past the feeling over being overwhelmed.

Each family that adopts has a different kind of relationship with their birth mother. It can very from one end of the spectrum to the other. For example, I’ve met families who actually have the birth mother baby sit the child on occasion. Other families meet the birth mom once or twice a year for a visit at a park. Sadly, some families know nothing about their child’s birth mom than perhaps her name and city in which she gave birth.

Oftentimes a family may have more than one adopted child the birth moms of the different children have different relationships with the family-if any. So the involved birth mom may even send notes or small gifts to the sibling of the child, so everyone feels included and loved.

When you have a relationship with a birthmom you may have any information you want for your child’s adoption book. She may be eager to help out to make sure the child has a wonderful book.

If you are an adoptive parent who doesn’t have much information about your child’s birth or birth family, don’t worry. You can still make a book that shares whatever you know and helps complete your child’s history.

For example, one of the most essential pages of the life book is about the biological mother, but you may not even have a photograph of her. Be sure to include a quotation or poem about how birth moms may feel when making the adoption choice for their child. Then write something for the book like, “Did you know that birth moms and dads give their special DNA to their children. I’ll be your beautiful smile and dark eye lashes came from your mom!”

Sometimes you may not even know the birthdate of your child or where he or she was born. Rather than calling attention to this fact, write something like, “You were probably born sometime during the winter of 2005 because when you came to the orphanage you weight about the same as the other children born about that time.”

Understand that it’s the amount of love and effort that you put into the life book that will most impress your child. As he grows older and starts to ask more questions, plan to do some of the research together to help answer the questions that arise. Until then, get started and don’t let a lack of information thwart you from crafting a loving adoption scrapbook album for your child. Kids love reading stories about themselves and they have the best imagination, having fun make up their own stories to fill in any blanks.