Keeping busy during your adoption wait is a great way to persevere.  Fortunately, there’s a lot that you can be doing as you wait for a birth mother to match with you!  Right now, you have more time to get things done than you will when you become parents. 

In today’s entry of Lifetime’s blog series “Before you Adopt,” we’re sharing about another project to do during your adoption wait – create a keepsake for your future child.

Scrapbooking is a very popular hobby at the moment. If you’re already creating scrapbooks of your vacations and holidays, consider making a scrapbook specifically for your future child. In this special keepsake scrapbook, you can include pages about your adoption journey and your excitement to adopt. Another idea for your adoption keepsake scrapbook is to include pages with some of the photos taken for your adoption profile. “My daughter loves to pull out her adoption scrapbook! Now that she’s older and understands her adoption story, she loves the page about her birth that has a photo of her birth mother,” shares adoptive mother Katie.

Or, maybe you like to quilt, knit, or crochet. You can use your talents to make a special keepsake for your future baby, such as hand-knitted booties or a special baby blanket.  Here’s a unique quilting project to try: mail fabric squares to your friends and family members, and ask them to write a message on the fabric. The messages could be ones welcoming your baby into the family, or special blessings. Once they mail the squares back to you, quilt a blanket for your future child’s nursery or bedroom. It’ll become a treasured family heirloom!

The project of creating a special adoption keepsake can be one of patience, love, perseverance, and determination, just like the domestic adoption process. Let us know if you’re going to try one of these keepsake ideas by leaving a comment below!

Written by Heidi Keefer

Heidi Keefer is a Content Creator for Lifetime Adoption and has 15 years of experience in the field of adoption. An author of thousands of blog posts over the years, Heidi enjoys finding new ways to educate and captivate Lifetime’s ever-growing list of subscribers.

Heidi has a keen eye for misplaced apostrophes, comma splices, and well-turned sentences, which she has put to good use as a contributor to Lifetime’s award-winning blogs. She has written and published hundreds of adoption articles which explore the various facets of domestic infant adoption today.