progress!

Ok, after hours and hours of laboring (pun intended) over our profile, I finished it yesterday! wooo hooo! Now I just need to print several and get them in the mail.

So what's next...

I am planning on making business cards with our email address, and toll-free number, and possibly our attorney and social worker's email and numbers too. That way we can carry them where ever we go, and hand them out to whomever.

Also, I plan to create a one-page flier explaining a little about us and how to contact us and I will distribute that via email to anyone who wants one, then you are free to print it out and hand it out to anyone who might know of a woman or BE a woman making adoption plans for her unborn baby.

I have a vision of me and a staple gun posting "WANTED: BABY!" fliers on telephone poles and anything else I could staple them to....

creating your adoption profile

The more beautiful, the more eye-catching, the better. You want to attract the attention of a birth mom.

Graphic designer that I am, I’ve found the task of creating our profile a very difficult one. Maybe it’s the perfectionist in me...

Anyway, I found some digital scrapbooking software and downloaded it but after a few days became more than frustrated that it wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do graphically. If you aren’t a graphic designer this software may work for you, it’s called iScrapbook. I think you can download a trial before paying for it, but some options are not available in the trial. It’s for Macs, but I’m sure there is scrapbooking software out there for PCs too.

If you are a graphic designer and have the Adobe Creative Suite, I recommend downloads from
ScrapGirl. They have jpg, png, etc. files that you can use in CS. There is a section of FREE stuff and I recommend downloading that out first, even if it is not your taste to get a feel for it, then you can download other papers, embellishments, etc. as needed. I have much more control and like this much better.

FYI: as in real life, most digital scrap book paper is 12"x12" but you can adjust it easily to 8.5"x11".

toll-free

I spent just about all day off and on the phone with Verizon business trying to set up an 800 number for birth mom’s to use to contact us. It proved to be much more difficult than I’d ever imagined.

The first call they set up my account, did a credit check, and checked about five numbers I’d come up with: all taken. They even checked 866, 877 and 888. Nuthin!

So I was told it was ok to call back with more numbers, but be sure to mention I already have an account when I called back.

So we came up with several more numbers. Several? 20+ more numbers. I called back. We went through all 20+ AND MORE variations, and still nuthin.

Finally we settled on the last 5 digits being HOPES.

Both times the agents were extremely helpful, especially after I explained the reason we wanted an 800 number was to make it easy for birth moms to contact us since we are hoping to adopt. Lemme tell ya, the second agent even waived the $15 set-up fee and I didn't even ask.

In case you are thinking of setting up an 800 number, we are having it roll over to my cell phone so we don’t miss a call by not being home (or because I am blogging on our DIAL-UP service using the phone line). The service is $12 a month, and calls are 6.4¢ a minute.

This 800 number will go on our profile and on calling cards that I need to create. This makes it easy for potential birth moms to contact us from wherever they are. At this time I have no plans to post it on line, though I know others have posted their 800 numbers online as well as in newspapers. We will consider that later.