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Adoption
May I join you ladies?
I have been lurking around for awhile & finally need to come out & join!
I have been on the IF board & alot of names are familiar to me as well
My history is in my siggie but I'm taking small steps towards adoption. It's a scary, big step for me. It's like going for IF treatments, you just don't know what to accept. You just drop right in. I have been researching a lot online & asking for information from different agencies. I have seen the FAQs posts which are very helpful. I do have a question, is it ok to mention your agencies name here or is that not preferred?
Another question as well, I'm sure I will have many. Do you tend to try to look for an agency in your state vs someone located out of state? The current agency I just spoke to today is not located where I live, unsure how that differs from someone located where I live? They have resources for the homestudy, because the will not being doing that for us. They will help us in all aspects of it but they are basically just responsible for marketing & finding us a BM. It's a 2yr contract, 98% of couples are placed & placement is within 6-18 mos. No refund of marketing fee is given if no match is found. Does this all sound correct/familiar?
Thanks for accepting me.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: May I join you ladies?
Welcome!
Most ladies don't mention their agency name for their own privacy -- not that of the agency. Names usually come up in complaints.
As far as your agency question, I can't give you any input, as we did a private adoption (attorney only -- birthmother contacted the attorney on her own, and attorney showed our profile along with profiles of other potential AP's and birthmother chose us). There are benefits and drawbacks to private adoption vs. agency adoption. For us, we were concerned about the marketing (which felt more like "recruitment") to birthmothers that the agencies we spoke with were doing. It was important to us that a birthmother clearly sought out adoption on her own. It was also important to us that we could make sure that our birthmother received non-biased counseling -- ours went to a counselor who is not affiliated with an agency. There is also a non-profit in my community that supports women in crisis pregnancies, whether they decide to abort, parent or make an adoption plan and she received additional counseling from them, including post-placement and ongoing as she requires it (we could only pay for post-placement counseling with the private counselor for 1 month after baby was born -- state law). I was concerned about an agency counselor providing counselor that might sway her.
These are obviously my own concerns and probably not what happens in the majority of agencies! But for us, it was important to be on the up and up as much as possible and this method gave us the most comfort and control! We definitely had to do more legwork: figuring out our profile on our own, doing our own research and then just confirming with the attorney (to keep our attorney fees down vs spending hours and hours letting the attorney "teach" us), more 1x1 communication with the birthmom during match, etc.
We had social workers/attorneys, but that was it -- there was no agency caseworker or social worker to help us out, but for us, it was worth the $15-20k savings to do that on our own and in the end it didn't seem like much work for the savings that we incurred.
Hello, and welcome.
I adopted internationally, so I don't have much information to answer your questions, but I just wanted to encourage you and tell you to take it a little at a time, and not let all the information overwhelm you. There's a lot out there, and it's okay to learn some of it as you go.
Welcome! The adoption process can be overwhelming, but you can do it
We tend to not mention agency names for various reasons. If you want specific recommendations, people are usually willing to share via PM.
Agencies can be wherever it works for you. Some people like having an agency close to them, but some work with regional or national agencies, or out of state agencies. I'd just make sure you'd know how home studies and ICPC work for any agency.
I have never heard of a 2-year contract. Many agencies have either fixed contracts (sign once and done) or contracts updated every certain amount of time. What happens after 2 years? Can you re-sign or are you just done?
GL and keep asking questions.
I asked about the 2 year contract. "If I am not matched after 2yrs what happens". No refund is given & they will basically sit down & review everything again, basically if you want to sign up again I guess is how I took it.
Of course I would do anything to have a child but do you consider the travel expenses if your BM is located farther away from you? How does that work? That is why I'm leaning more towards finding an agency in my state. I just called an agency that I know of in my state & waiting for a call back. The first agency I spoke w/this morning stated they work in all 50 states w/BMs whereas some work with only within the state which could be harder to find a match.
I know I can do this but it's like going to the RE for the first time. So many emotions!
I would ask detailed questions about what happens after 2 years. It may be as simple as you signing a new contract and staying with the agency. But I'd want that information upfront.
We didn't consider travel expenses for interstate adoption. We didn't consider them a major expense in the grand scheme of things. Although DD was born in our home state, we would have gone to whatever state she was born in and dealt with the expenses (eg, hotel stay, ICPC fees) from there. For national or regional agencies, you'll have to be aware of state laws for each state for adoption, and the agency should be able to give you information on how long you have to wait in the child's birth state before you can bring them home. You should be able to ask them detailed questions about how that works as well so you're prepared for what it may cost.
I would definitely consider travel expenses for an out of state match...we had one that failed (after placement -- we had to give the baby back) and our travel expenses were quite high.
We had family in that state, so outside of the first 1-2 weeks, our plan was that I would stay with family (with the baby) until ICPC approved our adoption and I could cross state lines with the baby. The average ICPC approval time is about 10 business days, but for the caseworker we were assigned to, we were told by our social worker to plan to stay 5-6 WEEKS. If you don't have family in that state and are going to have to foot the bill for hotel and last minute airline tickets (if you aren't driving) and you're budget is already tight, that could be difficult to swing.
We stayed at a fairly nice hotel with a small kitchenette next to the hospital and planned to buy groceries. Then a blizzard hit and all we could do was go to the restaurants in those few blocks and to the hospital. So we ended up spending a ton of money eating out for every meal.
It can be done...there are several women here who have done it successfully, but if your entire budget is going to be agency fees, legal fees, birthmother/medical and you don't have any wiggle room, you might want to stay within easy driving distance/where you have friends/family.
Welcome!
Also consider the option of adoption facilitators (if they are legal in your state) as well as adoption consultants. This is often a much qucker route to adopting. The average wait with our consultant is 3 - 6 months, and it took us 8 weeks from signing up with her until our baby's birth.
People on here tend to prefer to share info about their agency or consultant via personal message, and you will get a lot of good informaton about adoption professionals if you post asking for specific recommendations.
We live in GA and worked with a GA adoption consultant (who also works with out of state couples). We were matched with a baby being placed through an agency in Nevada. There were significant travel costs involved. If you adopt from a different state, you go through a process called ICPC, where basically your paperwork has to be approved by both the state where the baby is born as well as your own state before the baby can leave the state. This process typically takes up to 10 days, but it took longer for us. We spent 19 days in Las Vegas and were hemmoraging money. On top of costs for food and lodging, you also have to consider that last minute plane tickets with an unknown date of return can be very expensive. I think we spent around $1,000 per person on airfare that typically would cost us $200 - $500 per person when not booked at the last minute. That said, plenty of people save money by driving. Additionally, some cities have Ronald McDonald houses where you can stay for free.
Every agency has different policies, and you have to just weigh the plusses and minuses of each agency. We personally were not willing to go with an agency that had a large upfront cost prior to being matched. That way if we felt like we were waiting too long or were otherwise unhappy with the agency we could just switch agencies without losing a lot of money.
welcome to the boards. i don't have as much feedback to provide to you, as i have not been matched yet. keep asking questions and take your time and do what's best for you. there are many options and routes to take when adopting. keep an open mind and remember that some things are just not in your control. that's what keeps me going.
good luck to you!...