Creating a lifebook for your adopted child is difficult. It takes time, and weāre all short on time. It takes creativity, and we all have anxieties and doubts about our writing and creative skills. It also arouses emotions, some of which weād prefer not to dwell on.

But the experts tell us that a lifebook is important for every adopted child. Your childās life began slightly differently÷maybe hugely differently÷from most of his or her friends. A lifebook helps your child make sense of the past and gain ownership of his or her birth, early life, and adoption. Itās one of those things you know you should do, but you keep putting it off. I wrote a lifebook for my daughter, Adriana, when she was 3 years old. Based on my experience, here are some suggestions that may help you write a similar book:

1. Read adoption books to your child.

Once upon a time, a tiny baby girl was born in a hospital in Romania. Her name was Adriana.

There are lots of beautiful childrenās picture books that tell adoption stories. Find some you like, and read them often to your child. We had several books I read over and over again to my daughter, until I had practically memorized them. This gave me a sense of how to write my childās story, and some of the words in those books ended up in Adrianaās lifebook. When writing for a young child, you need a sense of how much text to put on a page and how to tell the story in language your child will understand. The first sentence of my daughterās lifebook, which is quoted above, I have to admit, was lifted nearly verbatim from a book we especially loved, Over the Moon: An Adoption Tale, by Karen Katz. Over the Moon begins, ćOnce upon a time a teeny-tiny baby was born.ä

Another book that we enjoyed was I Love You Like Crazy Cakes, by Rose Lewis. This book tells about the adoption of a baby girl from China, and it opens with a lovely watercolor picture of a baby room in an orphanage. The story begins, ćOnce upon a time in China there was a baby girl who lived in a big room with lots of other babies.ä

2. Mention the birth mother.

Adrianaās birth mother could not take care of a baby. Sadly, she asked the nurses in the hospital to take care of Adriana. Then she left.

These three sentences were incredibly difficult for me to write. In fact, the book did not include them for two years after it was written. The story I had written originally said that Adriana was born in a hospital, and ćThe nurses in the hospital took care of her.ä Finally, when Adriana was five, I wrote the sentences above about her birth mother and pasted them over the sentence about the nurses. When I read the story again to Adriana, for the first time after changing the text, I was quite nervous and wondered how Adriana would react. She stopped me and had me read the page a second time; then we went on. She integrated the new text very quickly. Sometimes Adriana asks questions about her birth mother now, but not with great emotion. (The emotional part will come for her, Iāve heard, in another year or two. For me, of course, it has been emotional right from the start.)

Articles on writing a lifebook always say that you should mention the birth mother. For some of you, your childās birth mother is an integral part of your lives and talking about her is natural and easy. For others, like me, this part may be difficult. We may not like to even admit that there was a birth mother, someone other than me who once was this childās mother. But children who donāt hear this part of the story sometimes think they were never born, that they were always at the hospital or in some way are unnatural, not like other kids. They deserve to hear this part of their story.

3. Tell what you know of your childās life before adoption.

This is where Adriana lived.

For some of you, there isnāt much to tell before your child entered your life. For those of us who adopted internationally or out of the foster care system, there may be quite a lot to tell. Use what photos you have, or drawings, or even official papers, to give your child a real sense of his or her life in those months or years before joining your family.

Adriana had nannies to take care of her. We have photos of the women who took care of Adriana in her baby home in Romania, including a wonderful close-up shot of a woman holding Adriana in her arm and kissing her hand. That picture is in her lifebook, under the sentence about the nannies.

4. Tell your part of the story.

Far across the ocean were two people named Pat and Craig. They were wishing too. They wanted to be a Mommy and Daddy. They wished they had a little baby girl to love.

Itās probably best not to start with your part of the story (the text above is on page 7 of Adrianaās lifebook), but do tell the part about how you longed and searched for a child. Show a photo of you and your spouse pre-adoption. Tell how you first heard about your baby. Include a photo from the day you met your child. Describe the excitement in your family when you all came home.

Constantin [our Romanian lawyer] went to a judge. He said, ćPat and Craig love Adriana. They want to adopt her.ä The judge decided that Pat and Craig would be good parents for Adriana. He said OK.

You may even want to say something about the legal aspects of the adoption. I included a description of our day in court, even though I knew it was above the head of a 3-year-old. It will become more meaningful as she grows older, and it may help reinforce the idea that adoption is legal, thoughtful, and forever.

5. Leave some pages to fill in later.

Adrianaās lifebook contains lots of photos from her first days in our home, plus a few shots of her first three birthdays and ćAdoption Days.ä It ends with these words:

They will always be her Mommy and Daddy. And she will always be their beautiful, smart, and strong daughter.

[I would have just written beautiful, but my husband said that was sexist and I had to include smart and strong too.]

Following the last page of text are blank pages. Adriana often tells me that we will add more photos, especially of her birthdays, to fill in those pages. So far, we havenāt done it, but theyāre there, available, for Adriana to add whatever events she feels are important as she gets older.

The Mechanics of Making a Lifebook

Iām not very handy in this way, but hereās how I created our physical book:

š I typed the text in a large, readable font (Geneva 18 point) in a Word document on the computer, divided it into pages with space left for photos, and printed it out.

š I taped photos on the pages (one or more per page). One page has a postcard that shows an attractive view of Bucharest.

š I took the pages to Kinkos and made color photocopies. That way, the original photos (many of which are irreplaceable) can stay stored in a safe place.

š I bought a binder that had plastic sheets to slide pages into. The photocopied pages are inserted between plastic sheets, which helped protect them from a 3-year-oldās fingers and also makes it possible to pull a page out and insert a different one or add pages anywhere in the book at any time. (A three-ring binder would work just as well.)

Adrianaās lifebook is always available for her in her room. There are times when she wants to hear it every night, and there are times when it sits on a shelf for months without being opened. At one point, around the time she turned 5, she wanted it read every night by both her parents, with us acting it out. She hid behind us on the bed, pretending to be a baby, and would not let us look at her till we got to the part about meeting her in Romania. Then we could turn around and say, ćHello, baby! Would you like to come home with us?ä She always nodded yes and crawled into our laps to be cuddled in our arms. What a nice way to say goodnight to our beautiful, smart, and strong daughter!