If your BM called you directly..

crene84

Since I am going to be working with an attorney, I guess potential BMs would contact me directly.  I am curious how that conversation goes.  What kinds of questions do you ask the BM, what kinds of things do you say?

I know my attorney will want some information so he can help me verify if they are legit, but I haven't gotten that list of questions from him yet.

amm78

The way our agency works, we have a toll-free number where expectant moms can call us directly (or they can email us) before they've even contacted the agency.  This can be pretty stressful, but I am also really glad that we have this option because I think it helps develop a personal relationship between adoptive parents and expectant parents early on, which I think is a really important part of open adoption.

Our agency gave us a list of things to say and not to say... but, I think that, more than anything, it's important to just be yourself and talk to her like you would talk to a friend.  Of course, we haven't matched yet, so maybe I'm way off base... but I think it's good to show her early on that you're just a regular person, like her.  Ask her how she's doing, how she's been feeling during the pregnancy.  Don't start asking her about drug use, race, where the birthfather is... things like that are better left for the agency/attorney to ask.  When we've had a call or email, we just encourage her to contact a counselor at our agency... but we always make sure to let her know that we're excited that she called/emailed and that we really want to spend time getting to know her better.   

Julie721

We ended up finding our BM through our attorney, but the way that our attorney does it, we put our contact information with our profile AS WELL AS the contact for the attorney's office, that way the BM could do whatever was more comfortable for her.

If we had a BM call us before she called the attorney, I would just ask questions to get to know her better, like a PP said, and then call the attorney after to get guidance on the next steps. GL!

IRR

We did have this happen.  We just said hi and let her know that we were new to all of this and that we were nervous to get that on the table.  We asked how far along she was and we said that if she had any questions we could answer about ourselves, to please ask us anything.  We also mentioned that to some questions it would be best to have our lawyer speak with her since we weren't sure about the entire process.  Our lawyer told us to play dumb with some things, like financial support and anything related to expenses.  Hope that helps.