Intro and ?s
KdgTeacher
member
Hello everyone!
I've been lurking for a few weeks and decided to bite the bullet and intro especially with our plans this week!
I'm Kdg a 26 y/o teacher. MH a 30 y/o police officer and I have been TTC for 2 years, We're still doing IF treatments (one more cycle then a break till the fall to do IVF). We've been doing some research on adoption and have set up 2 appts this week to get some more info!!! One of them is Catholic Charities--anyone used them? The other is a local agency. We're looking at domestic infant adoption.
I've read the FAQs and read a bit on my own. I know I'll get a ton (overlod!) of info this week, so I'm trying not to get too overwhelmed.....yet.
I'm trying to start a list of questions to be sure and ask and so far I've come up with:
*What is your average wait time? (Of course I know it could be days/years)
*Will our "case" be assigned to the same person start to finish?
I'm debating on asking if us doing IF treatments will have an impact on things. Thoughts?
Anything you wish you'd known early on in the game?
Thanks ladies. I look forward to spending more time here.
Re: Intro and ?s
Hi Kdg -- good luck on your remaining treatments. But to answer your questions:
-- I don't know that there's a reliable average wait time. It all depends what route you go (domestic vs international) and how open you are. Especially with domestic infant adoption, almost everything hinges on what type of family the BM is searching for. If you are open to more things such as race, gender, drug exposure, etc., your short will be waiter since you will likely be shown to more BMs than someone who is more restrictive in those areas. We were fairly open in what we would accept. We started our homestudy in early Sept and brought DS home on Thanksgiving of last year.
-- I can't really comment on the typical agency experience and how cases are assigned. We used a consultant who referred us to agencies with shorter wait times. The consultant also sent us situations from their vast national network -- we were matched through one of those situations and not by being "active" with one particular agency.
-- Many agencies will not allow you to pursue treatments at the same time as being active with them. But some will.
-- The best bit of advice I received was that I didn't have to only look at agencies in my home state. We placed through an agency in UT (not our home state). In fact, our home state doesn't have very friendly adoption laws for adoptive parents, and our first attempt in our home state was a failed placement that was absolutely heartbreaking. I also recommend looking at agencies that have no or low upfront costs or agencies where your matching fees aren't at risk if the BM decides to parent. We lost $5,000 at our failed placement, which is low compared to what some people lose on failed matches/placements.
Good luck to you!
-- I don't know that there's a reliable average wait time. It all depends what route you go (domestic vs international) and how open you are. No I know that, I meant asking the agency we talk to how long their clients wait on average. .
-- I can't really comment on the typical agency experience and how cases are assigned. We used a consultant who referred us to agencies with shorter wait times. The consultant also sent us situations from their vast national network -- we were matched through one of those situations and not by being "active" with one particular agency. HOw did you find your consult?
-- Many agencies will not allow you to pursue treatments at the same time as being active with them. But some will. I had a feeling--especially Catholic Charities
-- The best bit of advice I received was that I didn't have to only look at agencies in my home state. We placed through an agency in UT (not our home state). In fact, our home state doesn't have very friendly adoption laws for adoptive parents, and our first attempt in our home state was a failed placement that was absolutely heartbreaking. I also recommend looking at agencies that have no or low upfront costs or agencies where your matching fees aren't at risk if the BM decides to parent. We lost $5,000 at our failed placement, which is low compared to what some people lose on failed matches/placements. I know CC has you pay when matched, (on a sliding scale I think) but I don't know how it works if the match falls though. I'll ad that to my list of questions!
Thank you
-- I don't know that there's a reliable average wait time. It all depends what route you go (domestic vs international) and how open you are. No I know that, I meant asking the agency we talk to how long their clients wait on average. .
Something else you may want to ask is how many placements they do in a year and how many waiting families they have. Our failed placement was through a super tiny agency that only did 1-2 placements per year. Some of the $5,000 we lost would have been rolled over to a new situation, but considering how very few they do in a year, it would have been a loooooong wait if we stuck with them and only them. The agency we did place through does over 100 placements per year and has a relatively small number of waiting families.
-- I can't really comment on the typical agency experience and how cases are assigned. We used a consultant who referred us to agencies with shorter wait times. The consultant also sent us situations from their vast national network -- we were matched through one of those situations and not by being "active" with one particular agency. HOw did you find your consult?
I think initially just from lurking on this board LOL I'll PM you their info -- I don't think you're in my state, but I know they work with families from all over.
Hi, and welcome to the board!
We are currently working with Catholic Charities (of Dallas) doing DIA as well. I'm not sure what their stance is on continuing IF treatments during your adoption process, but from what I've read on other agency websites the general rule of thumb is that you've finished with IF treatments and the grieving process that goes along with not having bio kids.
Also, with CC of Dallas, I'm almost 100% positive that if you have a failed match, that money just rolls over to your next match, but I would ask them to be sure. I can check my financial agreement paperwork when I get home this afternoon and let you know what it says.
::waves:: Hi! A few thoughts on your questions:
A better question to ask other than wait time, is how many waiting families there are vs how many placements they've had in the past year. So if they have 120 waiting families and 50 placements, the wait will likely be 2+ years. If they have 50 waiting families and 60 placements, the wait will likely be around a year or less. And some places won't give you averages (ours wouldn't) because it could be days or years. They did tell us how long the longest wait was at the time.
I don't really know what advantage you have of knowing if your adoption will be handled by the same person, and something could happen where the SW could go out on leave, be transferred, etc. You may want to find out how many SWs they have at that particular office/agency.
I would definitely ask about IF treatments. Some places may want you to not do them at all, and focus only on adoption (our agency did). Better to go in knowing before you commit to a place and find out they can't work with you. And Catholic Charities may have an issue with IVF, though I don't have personal experience to tell you if that will be the case.
As for what I wish I'd known, I'd recommend contacting people the agency gives you for references. We didn't, and I wish we'd been more diligent in contacting a few people and getting real-life feedback. Internet reviews can be very, very misleading. Our agency had a horrible review for every glowing review. And we ended up having a stellar experience.
GL and can't wait to see you here more, you dirty lurker!
***coming out of lurking***
I don't know what state you are in, but we are in CA, and we are using an attorney instead of an agency. We had some bad experience with an agency early on, which made the decision to switch to an attorney that much easier.
We have LOVED being with our attorney and they told us the average wait was 3-24 months. We waited only about a month until our match (thank God!). The ones we looked at all wanted us to be done with IF treatments before we started (which wasn't an issue for us).
I am not sure about other states, but one thing we did and you can do in CA is to get your home study done independently while you are figuring out what agency/attorney to use. That way we didn't feel like we weren't making progress while we were making our decision. If you have any questions about our experience, PM me. Good Luck!
Welcome!