Adoption profiles are the most important way for you to get noticed by prospective birthmothers.
A great profile will lead to the all important match, which hopefully leads to a placement and realizing the dream of building your family. With the vast opportunities via the internet, hopeful adoptive families have more marketing options available than ever before.
Lots of matches are now being made from profiles being found online. With those facts come new information that can be provided to families: adoption profile stats. This is how many times your profile is being seen by prospective birthmothers. Depending on your adoption professional, you may or may not be informed when or how often your profile has been seen.
My experience through two infant adoptions
My wife and I have adopted twice – both newborns – and now we are working on our 3rd domestic infant adoption. Our adoption professional does not share profile stats.
We don’t know how many times our profile is viewed online and we don’t know how many printed profiles are sent out to prospective birthmoms. They make sure our profile is going out to every situation that matches our preferences.
We’ve trusted them to do this for us through both adoptions. In our experience, the waiting part of the adoption journey hasn’t been easy. Sometimes – especially after we’ve been waiting for months with no match – it can get frustrating not knowing how often prospective birthmothers look at our profile or watch our video.
Do you really want to know?
I can understand why families would want to see profile stats. I also know that it can get stressful. In the 7+ years I’ve been in the domestic infant adoption world, I’ve heard a lot of other hopeful adoptive families talk about their profile statistics.
I hear questions like: Why aren’t we getting picked when our profile has been seen 50 times last month? or Why has our profile only been seen 2 times last month? So I ask: It is worth knowing what your profile stats are?
Let’s take a look at the PROS and CONS:
PROS:
–It can let you know your adoption professional is doing their job if your profile is getting lots of views.
–It could give you peace of mind knowing prospective birthmothers are looking at your profile.
–It could give you hope to know eventually you will get picked to be parents.
CONS:
–If you don’t get lots of views, it can lead to anger and frustration with your adoption professional because you may assume they aren’t doing their job.
–If you don’t get lots of views, it can make you question and doubt yourself: Are we good enough to be parents? Maybe we’ve said something to turn off a potential birthmom in our profile? Maybe our photos are weak?
–Same is true if you get tons of views and still aren’t getting picked. The eventual question becomes: What’s wrong?
Here’s why you may not want to know (my opinion).
After going through two adoptions, I see that it really doesn’t matter if you know profile stats. Here’s my thinking behind this…
Let’s say your profile was viewed 100 times last month. Sounds pretty good, right? How many of those views were actually from prospective birthmothers? Do those numbers include other curious adoptive families wanting to see what your profile looks like?
No matter what your profile stats are, what will you do with that number? Are you going to change something if you get 50 views/month or if you get only 2 views/month for 3 months?
Yes, I know you have to be shown in order to be picked. That is why a BIG part of the adoption process is TRUST. You have to trust your adoption professional.
You should already know their history – their track record of the time it takes to match and place. If you don’t, find out now.
If you have good reasons not to trust them and you think they are not showing your profile good enough – then I would be talking with them and asking lots of questions about what they are doing.
I really have no idea how many times our profile was viewed by prospective birthmoms. I think it’s better not knowing mostly because of the disappointment of not being chosen and the doubt that follows.
I know some people LOVE adoption profile stats and they have to have them. I get it.
The reality and truth about domestic infant adoption is that the connection, the match and the placement happens when it is supposed to.
My point is this: to get matched it only takes one…the right one. The right situation, the right connection, the right birthmother to find you.
My wife and I and our two beautiful children are real examples.
What do you think? Do you want to know your adoption profile stats? Click here to take the 1 question survey and see the results.
