Our Chosen Child: How You Came To Us And The Growing Up Years

Rating:
Summary: THIS IS A WONDERFUL BOOK!
Review: I bought numerous memory books for my adopted child only to be disappointed each time until I found this one. This is a wonderful book with space for everything from birth through the growing up years. It is very family oriented in the traditional sense so it might not be a perfect fit for single parents.

Rating:
Summary: Good for domestic - not international adoption
Review: It was hard to tell from the review of this whether this would be a good choice for an international adoption. Against my gut feel, I went ahead and ordered this as I really wanted to get started on a lifebook while waiting for our son to come home. This is a really nice book - very colorful and cute little verses - but, to me, it seems like it is best for those adopting domestically vs internationally. There are pages in here where you can record baby's 'firsts' - since our son will probably be 6-8 months old when we bring him home, we'll probably not be around for some of the 'firsts.' Most definitely for parents adopting from other countries such as China and Russia, these pages wouldn't be relevant. Since I haven't been able to find what I really want, I've decided to keep this book but basically make what I'm looking for from scratch.

The one thing that really bothered me about this book was the sticker that is on the front cover - it says something about a book for adoption. That's fine but I didn't want to keep it on the cover - boy was this sticker difficult to remove. I still have lots of stickiness on the front cover. What a pain!

Rating:
Summary: I had no problem adapting for our daughter from China
Review: Our daughter is adopted from China and had no problem adapting this book for my daughter!

What I really also like about this book is that it's not just for the 1st year which I used for the 1st year at home, but goes farther with 1st to 5th birthday, School Bells 2 1/2 pages to record Preschool & Teachers, Kindergarten, Elementary School, After-school classes, 1st time you went to school you....., You were most interested in.... Your ambition was... Your best school buddy... Your favorite teacher was... We beamed when your teacher said..... Then there are 2 pages for Holidays, Keeping you Well, the Middle Years 6 through 12 grade, Teenage Years, A Sharing which has 2 pages for you to finish the sentence for great questions like.... A Thought we'd like to Share with You is...., Any Choices you ever make we'll support because..., We'll always be there for you because...., We've always wanted you to know that...., & We're very proud to be your parents because....., there is also a 1 1/2 pages for Looking Ahead ... Our wishes for your future, When it comes to summing up how we feel about you, always know that....,


Adaptions I made to make this book fit for my daughter/ or your child:

On the Family Tree page - I put " Your China Roots" down at the bottom of the tree and on the trunk of the tree where it splits for information on you and your husbands family I put " Your Chinese birth family". I even added an additional branch for my husband's son from a prior marriage!

On the Waiting for You page - Added what agency, the date we started out dossier / collecting paperwork, what we had to collect first paperwork wise, what we where ask to which I added a parenting class we went attended. This page is pretty easy to adapt.

On the When we First Saw You page - I talked about " the Call" we received telling us we where parents and the next day when when I got the Fed Ex package and took it UNOPENED - boy that was hard so that your dad & I could open together at his work and the 3 photos that where included with your medical paperwork and paperwork telling us all about you.

On the Showers of Love page - I took the first page and added both Baby Announcements, and the other the 2 showers that where given to us!

On Growing Up Page - I simply added at home and made all of the dates mentioned for how long after we had been home.

On Your Special Day - I used for our 1st " Forever Family Day" or some call it
" Gotcha' Day " which is the day you finally meet and get to FINALLY hold your daughter or son in your arms.

It is so hard to find good international adoption books, when most seem to be geared for domestic adoptions, but I had no problem adapting this book to fit my daughters needs. As well as another book I found and liked! I kept them both because this book goes further than the 1st year!

And as far as sticky stickers, ours didn't come with that sticker. But if you have that problem go to any scrapbooking store and they have I think several sticker removal products, the one I have has a built in sticker removal scrapper.

Rating:
Summary: THIS IS A WONDERFUL BOOK!
Review: Parents of adult adopted children will treasure this book to record their past. Parents of infant adopted children will enjoy using this book to record their present and future. It is well made and colorful. It has places for the mother and father to use. This would not be a great fit for single adoptive parents or alternative families, however. The book highlights and documents the child's years growing up. This keepsake is sure to be a labor of love. What a beautiful book.

Rating:
Summary: Author of Waiting for You: An Heirloom Adoption Journal
Review: Parents of adult adopted children will treasure this book to record their past. Parents of infant adopted children will enjoy using this book to record their present and future. It is well made and colorful. It has places for the mother and father to use. This would not be a great fit for single adoptive parents or alternative families, however. The book highlights and documents the child's years growing up. This keepsake is sure to be a labor of love. What a beautiful book.

Rating:
Summary: Won't fit most families, and a little too "cute" for us.
Review: There are a lot of good ideas here, and the authors have obviously tried very hard. It seems to me, though, as if they have tried too hard, and included far too many specific blanks to fill in, so that almost anyone would run into quite a few that would be forced and hard for them to fill out. On the other hand there are quite a few places where one might want to write quite a bit, but there is only half a line of space. I guess the motivation is to make it easy on the parents, so they don't have to think up their own special moments and wording for things. However, I think it is better to have a baby book that is more open ended so that you can adapt it to your own needs. And with an adoptive baby book this seems even more important, because of the varieties of adoptive experience. This book has so much detail that it ironically becomes less than adaptable.

Some example of what I mean: It is made for traditional mother and father families, so not for singles or gay parents, or even unmarried heterosexual parents (because it has a page for the marriage and the honeymoon). It even says "When Dad proposed, he said..." Well, I'm sure not every married couple had a traditional proposal--we didn't. It also isn't very adaptable to having other siblings already, especially from previous marriages, etc. It includes a section for "firsts" like first smile and first times sitting up and rolling over, that would not apply to adoptive parents of anything other than newborns. For most International Adoptions, most of these milestones will already have passed, and when going through the book with your child (the whole point, I would think) it would be awkward to have a bunch of blanks that you can't fill in. It also has a page talking about our "first trip" with the baby, which because of the wording really isn't adaptable to International Adoption (or even domestic out of state adoption) where the first trip is to adopt the child! Though not explicitly religious, it also has some religious references that might not work for everyone: it mentions "praying" for the baby and calls the baby an "angel" ("We're two loving people, Almost as happy as we could be. We just needed a special angel, To join our family tree."). It also has a page for a Naming Ceremony, including a place for giving someone a "special honor" at the Naming Ceremony. I guess the motivation is to not be explicitly religious and include a Christening or Baptism, but not everyone has a naming ceremony either, and it is hard to just leave whole pages blank, and even harder to adapt the Naming Ceremony page if you do have a Baptism. This sort of thing occurs throughout the book, and it just feels as if you are being forced a lot of the time.

For me the verses are a little too "cute" and clichéd for my taste, especially since this book is supposed to go on into the teenage years and even beyond. Besides the example above, some that bugged me were: "School Bells. All dressed up to go to school, You're the cutest one of all, I can't believe you're off to class, You look so very small." and "Growing Up. Eat your vegetables, drink your milk So you can grow so tall, You're quickly outgrowing everything, And you're the sweetest child of all." I also have trouble with the title, because "Chosen" isn't really exactly accurate for most adoptive families, and also it brings up images of almost "shopping" for a child, as if you could "unchoose" at some point if the child didn't match your expectations.

I think there is a real need for an Adoption Baby book, but I think this one is so specific as to be awkward and perhaps unusable for most adoptive families. I think I won't be able to use this book myself because there is so much that will seem clichéd, or forced, and some that would make both me and my child uncomfortable.