An Adoption Update

It’s been awhile since I posted anything about our adoption process. On January 26, I wrote about trying to find an agency to work with.

I did talk with One World Adoptions in Florida, and they’re working with us. All of their placements are from Florida, and, given that we want a baby girl and don’t have a ton of money for birth parent expenses, if we match through them, it’s likely to be a baby born situation.

I talked with Nightlight Adoptions down in Southern California too. I really hit it off with the representative with whom I spoke. The only downside? It costs $1000 to sign up with them. They often have to turn down expectant parents who are having black babies – that is, they need more parents who want to parent black babies. There are no guarantees, as with any of the services we use. It’s just that this one costs $1000 up front, as opposed to $150 or $300. After match, should we match with them, the fees are reasonable and I believe we would get good service.

I also spoke with Adoption Consultants Inc. It’s a facilitator, and most of the babies are born here in California. The fee for registering (as opposed to contracting with) the service is $200. But, upon match, the fee is $12,000. That doesn’t include any legal fees. The woman who runs the service believes we should be able to adopt for $20,000, or even less than that if we end up with a local situation. Adoption Consultants could be more than Nightlight, though, in the long term.

In the mean time, we’ve been presented for 2 situations, both of them baby born situations in Florida.

On February 11, we were told of an expectant mom due by C-section on February 22. We submitted our profile. Well, Mom went into labor on Valentine’s Day, so we were presented on the 15th. We were one of only a few families, but, we found out at the end of the week, we were not chosen.

The following Tuesday (February 22), we were called about a baby born in Florida that morning. We submitted our profile, and we found out 2 days later that we weren’t chosen.

I look at a number of web sites that include available situations. There’s a facilitator in Northern California that I check daily. She doesn’t accept parents who specify gender. Well, there was a situation for a preemie – a baby born on February 26 in Ohio. The fees were higher, but I decided to inquire anyway. That was a Wednesday – March 2nd, I believe. I checked my mail on the phone even from Chuck E. Cheese. Nothing. No big deal. Then, on Thursday night, I got an email message from the woman. I called her on Friday morning. The fees were being reduced. I scrambled to get our paperwork to her by 10:30 am our time, because the lawyer in Ohio was taking profiles over that afternoon. I waited… finally at 3 our time, I called the facilitator. Our paperwork hadn’t made it to the lawyer before she left the office, so we weren’t even considered.

Boiling mad, I was.

The next morning, we received a call from the facilitator around 9 am – an Hispanic baby had been born (somewhere), but she didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl.

Now, on the phone the previous day, I explained that we wanted our baby girl to be of African American heritage, because Jack is. I also mentioned at least twice that we wanted a baby girl, and I put that on our paperwork as well.

The facilitator asked, “I need to know if you really want only a baby girl.”

I said, “Yes, only a baby girl.”

She said, “OK. Conversation ended. Thanks. Bye bye.”

Seriously?

Oh, and it turns out that the mom of the preemie chose to parent.

So… I’m still finishing a second draft of our adoption profile, because I felt like I rushed the first one. After I’m done with that, I have to decide if we want to sign with Nightlight, register with Adoption Consultants, or both.

I should also mention that I’ve inquired into 2 situations via the American Adoptions waiting children page and that we were presented a situation for a baby born in Florida, but the fees were over $30,000. The 2 situations I asked about had been taken by the time I inquired and $30K is way over our budget.