[Alison_inPA]

Princess, you're going to get some controversial answers to this question, I suspect. But I know just how you feel about the agency choice. It's very difficult because there are so many choices. In the end, I would suggest you trust your gut feeling about which agency reflects your personal values and attitudes about the whole adoption process.

In the end, we decided to go with the agency that we felt was responsive to our concerns and questions. Some of the big players in this game are very good with the PR but not so good one-on-one with follow-through. Ultimately, it was also preferable for us to go with a true social service agency, not an agency that only does adoptions. We chose one that has been established in our community for a long time and whose goal is improving the lives of families of all kinds through adoption and other social programs. They happen to have a religious affiliation, but that wasn't the primary draw for us. Another we considered was similar in structure but not religious.

Even those most (maybe all?) adoption agencies are non-profit, you definitely get a different money vibe from some of them. There were some that were only interested in very carefully-selected families for very narrow programs. There were others that basically said they'd give us answers to our questions only after we paid an application fee. We decided against those. As it happened, we ended up with an agency that has a pay-as-you-go fee structure rather than requiring us to put out all or most of the adoption money upfront. This strategy leaves you with little protection if things don't work out.

In the end, we also picked a hosting program, which has other criteria involved. Fortunately we found a hosting program with the kind of agency we wanted to deal with. We're not very far along in our journey yet, but we haven't had cause to regret our agency choice up until now.

Good luck with your choice!