We connected with DS' birthfamily 4 months after we started searching. Here's what we did:
We had created a master e-mailing list of all our friends, family, close business associates, etc. We used this list to ask for help in searching, and kept the group updated every 2-3 weeks or so with how things were progressing. One of these list members, a "work friend" of mine from a previous employer (we mostly trade jokes on e-mail), made the connection. She had gotten an "update" from us about a week before her ex-husband's daughter found out she was pregnant and decided on adoption. So we were fresh in her mind.
A few other things we did that generated leads and one other family being made:
1. Made up business cards with brief blurb and our contact info. Left them everywhere - restrooms at movie theaters, hockey games, fast food restaurants, airports, etc. We gave cards to waitstaff, left them on pay phones, bulletin boards, ATM machines, etc. We got 9 leads, one of which turned into a connection & placement for another family using our agency. We asked friends and family to do the same and ended up with a "mad mad carder brigade". We got cards pretty inexpensively at Vista Print
www.vistaprint.com.
2. Sent out letters to hospitals, doctors, etc. Got one call from a social worker that almost turned into a placement for another family. This would've been very expensive if my employer hadn't let us use their color copier though.
3. Put up flyers in our cars with our info on them, as did some of our friends. Also put flyers up in laundromats, bulletin boards, etc. Got several calls from these, especially the cars.
4. Put up a website and linked it to adopting.org, abcadoptions.com, preciouskids.org, all the search engines and anywhere we could go where it was 'free' or at a minimum fixed cost. We got a few e-mails and calls from three different potential situations. ABC adoptions also puts people who list with them on a mailgroup for their 'birthmothers seeking situations' site. We sent our profile in on every one of those and heard from a few people too.
Also, we really told everyone. I have a heart-shaped red button with the word ADOPT! on it that I'd wear places. You'd be amazed how many people came up and asked me about it, giving me a chance to give out a card and ask. I got 4 separate leads from people in a professional group who knew we were searching - either their friends/family or an employee became pregnant, etc. We told our postman and the guy who delivers the newspaper.
It was very hard at first (we really are private people) but got much easier with time and as leads formed. We also found so many "gifts" - notes of support from strangers, friends sharing their adoption stories (adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents) that we had never heard, so many prayers. We are continually amazed and touched.
We had no success with the newspaper or "on screen" advertising at a local movie theater so we wouldn't bother with that again. Others, though, connected through newspaper ads.
HTH
Regina, AMom to Ryan Joshua Thomas