Money ? for people doing/have done domestic infant adoption
I was wondering if people are doing/have done their own outreach? or are you paying either your agency or a facilitator to help you make the match?
We've only gone to the info session for one domestic adoption agency and found they charge quite a bit of money to be included in their outreach program. They don't show your profile to expectant moms who contact them unless you are part of it. They charge pretty much as much as local independent adoption facilitators, but they have a longer match wait time. (Actually, a significant number of their completed matches last year were either self-identified or through use of an additional paid facilitator.) For reference, they estimate $15000 for an adoption through them plus birthmother expenses and outreach.
Actually, I'm seriously wondering about the ethics of outreach in general. Any thoughts? It seems to add quite a bit of money to the process and changes the situation from finding a home for an infant to finding an infant for a couple, who can pay.
Re: Money ? for people doing/have done domestic infant adoption
There are definitely pros and cons to using an agency. It can be expensive but there are things they should do which are helpful and can be worth the expense.
IMO one of the most valuable services they provide is the assurance of good emom counseling. I would never want to proceed w/a situation if Emom did not have good support and counseling.
It sounds like this agency has a variety of services... IMO I'd keep looking until I found an agency (or not) that made sense.
We did not do our own outreach. The agency was truly "one-stop shopping" in that they did everything: homestudy, help with our profile, outreach/advertising, counseling (before and after birth for all members of the triad, especially BPs), post-placement, finalization.
Our adoption fees were $34K, including all of the above. Wait time couldn't even be averaged, but the longest wait was 2 years (we waiting 3 months after our profile went active).
Our state doesn't allow for BM expenses. You could donate to a fund the agency has for birthfamilies, and they cut a check directly to a landlord, dr, etc. if BPs/EPs need financial help. The agency actually discouraged larger donations to this fund, as they didn't want anyone to feel like they were influenced by a large amount of BP support.
There were times I worried about the ethics of their advertising arm, or the hefty chunk that was our match fee. But I also saw our SW showing up at 8PM to walk us through a mound of paperwork when we were matched, our BM's SW crossing the county to help facilitate 3 matches in one day, and the stories of our SW meeting with BPs at 7AM to have coffee and talk about any issues they were having. It made me feel better that some of that match $ was going to pay their salaries.
The concept of finding an infant for a couple has struck me. But I guess I have to think about it as, where else would this child be going if it weren't for these agencies? Less than ideal situations with their BPs? Foster care? I will agree that the situation is not ideal, and maybe this isn't the right option for you, or that things need to change on one level or another. It's a complex question and I don't claim to have all the answers..
We are considering going down this route too. Did you find your attorney before matching with your BM, or after? Do you mind PMing me with a little more info?
Sent you a PM!
That sounds like a great experience. I'm glad everything went so smoothly for you. We are going to talk to a lawyer later this week. I'm pretty sure parentprofiles.com isn't allowed to operate in CA, but I think there are other, local sites we can register on. I'll check them out.
That's a good point about the emom counseling. I'd have no idea how to set that up for an emom on my own. Plus, it seems the agencies have their own social workers to facilitate interactions during the pregnancy and delivery.
Thanks for your thoughts.
This was probably the biggest thing we were missing with the route we chose, but we had planned from the beginning to offer any EMs we matched with counseling, paid for by us. It just worked out that our BM was very sure in her decision and never wavered. She was not interested in counseling and luckily it worked out for us. But yes, I strongly recommend trying your best to get counseling for your match regardless of which route you take.
This appeals to us. I do think it would be worth paying someone/people to alleviate some of our worry about making sure we were doing the right thing.
I just don't know either. There is so much loss involved, it's hard to know how to minimize it. Absolutely, I understand that good people are hard at work making the adoption process work as well as it can.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
We've looked pretty extensively at a number of agencies. Our agency offers a Traditional Agency Adoption or an agency assisted Private track option. We're opting for the agency adoption, though if a situation presents itself to us that would make us suitable for private track we'd certainly go that way (it would be another fee).
Our agency has sliding scale placement fees, and those fees are supposedly cut by 50% if you are private track (though you upfront cost increases by I think $500.00)
Because of the going rate of lawyers in our city there is NO WAY we could even afford one for a full adoption. It's gonna hurt enough using one for finalization and paperwork in the interim.