[GregDeanna]

Hello Maralee -



We hope you are doing well. I wanted to answer some of your questions that I don't think were answered yet. In regards to adoption cost, the adoptive couple should be paying for your attorney fees and any medical expenses that are not covered by your insurance. Legally there are things that the aparents can pay if they want to and there are things that they can not pay for.



You do not need to work through an agency and can chose to select a couple on your own via friends/families, choosing a couple by looking at profiles on the internet, etc. I would think that you could hire an attorney now because most attorneys know that the adoptive couple would pay their expenses but if not you would be able to select a couple and then hire an attorney. For example, my husband and I have our profile posted on parentprofiles.com (not sure if this is ok to talk about here or not) and when a pbmom contacts us we would ask her if she has selected an attorney yet from her home state or not. If she has we would have our attorney contact her attorney and let them start talking about the placement. If she has not yet selected an attorney we would see if we could try to help her find one that she is comfortable with.



As adoptive couples you can chose to hire an agency to have them help you locate a pbmom or you can network on your own via the internet, family, friends, etc. For our first adoption we hired an agency but found the bmom on our own. It is an amazing story how we found each other. So for our second adoption we thought we would try to post our profile on a website and also ask our family and friends to spread the word. My point is is that pbmoms and aparents can either go to an agency to find each other or other sources. I have had many bmoms tell me that they liked looking at profiles online because you can do it on your own time, in the privacy of your home/school and not feel pressured by an agency to make a decision.



You have a lot of choices out there and we pray that you find peace with your decision. Like others have said, you will know it when you have found the right couple to place your child with.



We will keep you in our thoughts and prayers.



To the monitor - if I have said anything that I shouldn't have in this email please forgive me and edit the email as you see fit.