Autobiographies

As part of our application process for the agency, Jon and I are required to write our autobiographies. This task seemed easy enough until they tell you that you cannot exceed four pages and that you have to hit several of the following talking points:

• Your year of birth
• Your childhood and upbringing, including family dynamics
• Your education and career path
• Your special skills, interests, or passions
• Any chronic or serious health issues
• Your faith, religion, and/or values
• Your greatest satisfactions and disappointments
• Marriages, significant relationships, children
• The people, events, or ideas that have had the biggest impact on your life (good and bad)

Since these autobiographies will be one of the first things that a potential birth parent will read to learn more about you when they are making the life changing decision of who should have their baby, it was both challenging and terrifying to sum up your life in two to four pages. Jon and I wanted to ensure that our lives did not come off smelling like roses (as nobody's has or actually does) though we don't want to overemphasize the bad stuff either and look miserable with life (not that we are, except maybe at really hard times).

Here is the summarized versions (click on the links and they take a few second to open) of our lives up to the point that we are moving forward with an adoption:

• Keith's Autobiography
• Jon's Autobiography