While the excitement of waiting to see your child's face for the first time can be extreme, many adoptive parents have found that their referral picture(s) were a bit of a let down. It is hard not to build up the moment in your mind while you are waiting for a referral, dreaming about and imagining what your child's photo is going to look like. But it is important to remember that often times, referral photos are not great pictures.

Usually a person that the child does not know is singling him out from the other children in the orphanage or from his foster family, and taking his picture. Kids do not usually enjoy this kind of thing (heck, at least half of my kids would freak out under those conditions), so referral pictures often show sad, scared looking kids.

It is also very common for children in Africa and Asian orphanages to have their heads shaved (which of course adds to the "sad" look). And anyone who has ever tried to take a picture of a baby or a toddler knows how hard it can be to get a decent shot, even under the best of conditions.

While everyone wants to get a beautiful photo of a smiling child with their referral, the chances are good that you won't. It's o.k. to look at your child's referral photo and not think that he is the most gorgeous child to ever roam the earth or to feel any sort of instant bond or love.

When we got Maggie's referral photos, she was a very young baby, lying in a crib with a cross look on her face, and crazy amounts of jet black hair, standing straight up. One of the two photos was blurry. They were both very small pictures, and it was difficult to get a very good look at her. But she was ours!

Another reason that many children look sad and/or scared in their referral photos is that they were very recently relinquished (sometimes these pictures are even taken at the time of relinquishment). Obviously in that situation, the child really is scared and sad, and their photo will likely reflect that.

Our referral photo of Ben was taken on the day that he was relinquished at the orphanage by his grandmother. The photo shows a very heartbroken, lost and frightened little boy. However the pictures we got a few months later showed a smiling, active and happy kid, which he truly ended up being.

Keeping all of this in mind, try not to form concrete opinions or expectations of your child's personality or well-being based on your referral photos. A child that looks very sad in a referral photo very likely ran off to play as soon as he was released from his photo session. Babies change drastically very quickly when they are young. Children who are malnourished at relinquishment can gain weight and change physically in a short amount of time. Children who are sickly when they come into care can change significantly with some TLC.

To look at our Solomon's very first referral photo and then to look at recent pictures, you can hardly tell that it is the same child. His first pictures show a sad, grieving, sick, malnourished, developmentally delayed, very "lost" little guy. His recent pictures show a healthy, thriving, happy, chubby, beautiful child.

My advice is to look forward to your referral photos, obsess over them, look at them over and over and cherish them as your first glimpse of your child, but at the same time, remember that your are seeing just a tiny second of that child's life, and know that your child may look and act very differently when they are placed with you than they look in those referral pictures.

How did your child look in his referral pictures? How did he look compared to his referral pictures when he was finally placed with you? Leave a comment and tell me about it. :)