What is something you wish you knew before choosing an adoption agency?

Re: What is something you wish you knew before choosing an adoption agency?

• CaptainSerious member

  December 2011

  Each agency should give you a break-out of their fees.  The first time we adopted, ours included a little asterisk, which noted that certain costs and fees paid to other entities were not included in the list.  I wish we asked for an explanation of what that included and an estimate of how much it could run.  In the end, our adoption cost about double what we were quoted (we expected it to be more, but the doubling was a shock to me).

  For reference, we adopted internationally, and most of these extra fees were related to the translation and authentication of documents and US Immigration costs.

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• Dr.Loretta member

  December 2011

  I wish we'd called a couple of references from the reference list provided, just to get a real-life experience story or 2.

  But we had a good experience with our agency.

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• CaptainSerious member

  December 2011

  Ooh!  Another thing:  I would have asked not just when there offices were open, but also what the typical working hours of our assigned caseworker would be, and if she divided her time between working on caseloads and anything else.

  Our caseworker has extremely flexible hours, and is often out of the office in the afternoons, and every Friday throughout the summer.  Another caseworker at the agency splits her time between educational/administrative tasks and cases; if you call her during the time she is working on her other tasks, you have to wait until her appointed casework time for her to respond to you.  This is not conducive to the adoption world, where often things happen instantly and an immediate response is not a luxury, it's a necessity.

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• MayDayGirl member

  December 2011

  I wish I would have realized how hard it would be for an all white family with a white bio child to adopt an AA child.  We probably would have chosen an agency who did more placements (though we LOVED our agency... our wait was just long.)
  

  Married on 3.20.2004. It took 30 month, 2 failed adoptions and IVF for our first miracle. We have had 9 foster kids since he was born and started the domestic adoption process when he was 10 month old, we had 4 failed matches in that time. After our daughter was born we brought her home and spent 2 weeks fearing we might lose her because of complications that came up. But Praise God all went through and she is ours forever! Expecting again after IVF
  

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• cadgirl member

  December 2011

  MayDayGirl:

  I wish I would have realized how hard it would be for an all white family with a white bio child to adopt an AA child.  We probably would have chosen an agency who did more placements (though we LOVED our agency... our wait was just long.)
  

  Out of curiosity, what did you mean by how hard it would be?  Because of where we live, it's a strong possibility that we will be placed with AA children while fostering, so I'm trying to prepare as much as possible.
  

  Foster parents turned adoptive parents
  Adoptive daughter born 08/07/13... growing so fast
  BM due again end of March 2015 so any day!
  Bloggy blog

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