by Patricia McGeever

The tragic loss of a baby is taking a young couple in a new direction to grow their family. It’s also led a young mother to create a business to help others who want children. Melanie and Andrew Adams have a three-year-old son, Joel. After three miscarriages, the couple was expecting another child when Melanie went into labor at 20 weeks. The baby, a girl named Ruth, died.

“When things started getting more seriously wrong, we had talked about this [being] our last pregnancy because we can’t handle emotionally going through all this again,” said Melanie. “We don’t want to stop having kids and a family. We just felt like God was saying, ‘This is the time to adopt.’”

Working with an agency to adopt an infant, Melanie and Andrew want an open adoption so the child will know his or her birth mother. They need to create a profile book in this process so birth mothers can get to know them, but the profile isn’t included with the enormous adoption fee, which cost the couple more than $900.

“There’s still the same glut of adoptive parents trying to adopt, but fewer babies,” said Andrew. This “makes it all the more important to make a great profile and make yourself stand out,” Melanie said.

The Adamses hired a professional woman who partnered with their agency to write their book, figuring she would know how to make their profile appealing to birth moms, but they were disappointed with what they received; it had mistakes and grammatical errors. A fifth grade language arts teacher who also oversees a creative writing club at her school, Melanie realized she could do better. After altering her own profile, she wanted to help other prospective adoptive parents.

In March, Melanie started Reflecting Faith Designs, LLC, a Catholic-based business that offers writing services to people who need adoption profiles. She set up shop on Etsy (reflectfaithdesigns. etsy.com) and offers different packages for writing, revising and offering feedback on profiles.

“This is such a rollercoaster of really having to trust God and trust that everything is working out in His time, and there’s a lot of second-guessing that goes into profile books,” she said. “You have one shot to make your name stand out among dozens of other people this mom might be considering. You will have to put your best foot forward but also be honest and show your personality.”

There’s a lot of pressure to get it right— even the smallest detail could make the biggest difference to a birth mother. “You’re an excellent writer,” Andrew told his wife. “You’ve got an eye for graphic design. The adoption profile we paid for was ridiculously expensive. Maybe you can help someone.”

This is what Melanie wants to do. “I just want people to have a good quality profile at an affordable price, so … they have the chance at having a family just like anyone else.”

This article appeared in the August 2024 edition of The Catholic Telegraph Magazine. For your complimentary subscription, click here.