Book Review: “Before You Were Mine: Discovering Your Adopted Child’s Lifestory”

What is a Lifebook?

The authors of Before You Were Mine: Discovering Your Adopted Child’s Lifestory, define it as “a book of memories about a child’s life prior to adoption…a story book that acknowledges, celebrates, explains, and honors the life of an adoptee prior to adoption. It gathers the bits and pieces of our adopted children’s lives before they joined our families and gracefully organizes it all—words, pictures, documents, and photos—in the form of a story.”

Why is an adopted child’s birth story so important?

Because every adopted child has what the authors call “missing pieces” – “loss, memories, history, questions, and people.”

Adoptive parents can become their child’s storytellers, finding ways to tell them the story of their birth, of their separation from their birth parent(s), and how to honor their birth parents.

Susan TeBos, mother of three internationally adopted children, and Carissa Woodwyk, a Korean-born adoptee and professional counselor, teamed up to co-author this workbook, which includes step-by-step guidance for how busy parents can discover and share their child’s birth story. The book is unique in that it approaches Lifebook creation from a Christian faith perspective, providing adopted children a means to understand their birth history from God’s perspective.

The workbook explains:

• What a Lifebook is not
• Why it’s important to share your child’s story—even the difficult parts
• How to become the storyteller
• What to include in your child’s Lifebook
• How to prepare for and enter into adoption conversations with your child

The book also includes checklists of pre-adoption photos and documents you can include, questionnaires to guide you through the writing process, scripture promises you can claim for your child, and suggestions for how to design and layout the Lifebook’s pages.

Before You Were Mine is an easy, inviting read packed with engaging anecdotes and simple-to-follow instructions. It is a valuable resource for any adoptive parent, particularly a parent who adopts an older child.

This book is available from my Exploring Adoption Bookstore.

For more news and information about adoption, visit www.laurachristianson.com.