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Adoption
Newbie question: Adoption Agency vs. Attorney (Ohio)
Hi, I live in Ohio, and DH & I just went through our first unsuccessful round of IVF. They were unable to preserve any of our embryos, so if we choose to try again, we would be starting from scratch. We have a meeting with the doctors in a month to talk about what the best next step is. That's the background.
In the meantime, I would like to learn more about the adoption process to feel educated about our alternative.
Did you use an adoption agency or an adoption attorney or both? I am trying to understand the best way to go for all involved parties..
Thanks for your input!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Newbie question: Adoption Agency vs. Attorney (Ohio)
We are using an agency.
There really is no best way, it's the way that works best for you. Seeing as we were complete novices at this adoption thing, and have a lot on our plates, we decided to go with an agency for their "one stop shopping". The agency will do the homestudy, find BMs to present our profiles to, do any pre- and post-adoption counseling/classes for us and the birthfamily, handle the legal paperwork, etc. It was our (limited) understanding that an adoption attorney would do some of that, but it was up to us or someone they contracted with to do other aspects of the adoption process (eg, the homestudy).
?^^ Those are our exact reasons for using an agency vs an attorney.?
?
Ditto. Dr.Loretta hit it (at least for us)! ?:)?
1. Read as many books (within reason) about adoption as you can and there are tons of web sites about adoption,
2. Make a spreadsheet of all the things that you feel are important based on your research (counseling services for birth mother, wait period, costs, do they do the home study and post placement services, do they provide the legal services or do you have to get that separate (in case of agencies) and so forth),
3. Interview your local agencies and adoption law firms - making a note of which ones do what and add to your over-all of things you find important if you discover something new during your interviewings,
4. If you don't feel 100% connected with an agency/law firm at that point then start interviewing agencies that are licensed in your state but may not have an office in your state. For example, we live in NJ but our agency is based in KS but licensed in our state. They connected us to our birth mom who lives in NY.
You do not have to restrict yourself to in-state agencies and in some cases that can be a mistake. By restricting yourself to in-state adoptions only, also be aware that you could be adding, potentially, years onto your adoption wait depending on how many other families in your state are waiting too for only ohio babies. It is better IMO to be a bit more broad and open.
5. Don't close ANY doors until you have researched them and really thought through them. Too often, I feel, couples start out on their adoption journey with doors closed (to other races, to working with other states, to various situations, and so forth).
Adoption does not have to be a long, sad, fear-ridden journey. It is what you make of it. IMO I believe that now more than ever since the birth of our son.
No two adoption law firms are going to be the same and no two agencies are going to be the same. So you can't close a door to one or the other, IMO, until you interview a few or unless you just feel 100% connected to one without doing all the interviews. Some agences offer an 'inclusive' service in which they do pretty much everything for you (provide the legal services, counseling services, home study and so forth) without you having to hire any other parties. But not all do.
Anyway - that's my tips or ideas for the day.
Good luck
We're actually probably going to go with an attorney. This attorney also have a birthmother outreach program, so all I have to contract out from them is a home study sgency. Which, I just found out that the one we picked out works frequently with our attorney, which is cool.
So there are lots of options out there, most "people" do more than one aspect, but most don't do all three parts, so it's up to you how you structure your team.
The main parts for domestic are: 1) find the borth mother (outreach programs, facilitors, netowrking), 2) homestudy and post-placement stuff, and 3) the legal stuff, termination of parental rights, and any other things you need on the road to finalization.
TTC since May 2006. After 3 failed Clomid cycles, 2 failed Injectibles/IUIs, 2 failed IVFs and 1 failed FET, we moved on to adoption!
Last ditch FET resulted in BFP, and identical twin girls!
We're using an attorney who is part of a larger non-profit that includes social workers, counselors, profile services, and birthmother outreach. We liked the attorney a lot because there was no application fee to be represented, no match fee, etc -- our costs are legal fees based on actual hours the attorney works, homestudy fee, actual birthmother expenses for whoever we're matched with, and the cost to host our profile online if we choose to do so, and the cost of printing our profile or making it in whatever format we choose for the lawyer to show. Counseling is provided at no cost to us pre- and post-placement. Of course, we may wait longer than some people, but at the same time we've already been matched once at 5 months (it fell through) and again are looking at a match at 10 months after we began first talking to them, so I don't think that's too long at all.
I agree to research all of the different agencies and lawyers you're interested in. Beware of anyone who asks for a huge payment up front pre-match. There are lots of great books and a Yahoo group to compare different agencies and options. Educate yourself and choose what is best for your family.
Jacks said it perfectly.
Do you know if you want to do domestic, international or adopt from foster care?
There's alot of information out there, take your time researching...and hang around...these girls are a wealth of information!!!
Personally, we are adopting from foster care, by doing foster to adopt...so we are going through an agency that contrats through the state.