[joannemckay76]

Hi, I've been posting on adoption.com for awhile now.We started this over two and half years ago.....a long time waiting and networking our hearts out. We spoke to our parish priests and they werent very supportive. Its hard when we just want to be parents and find a birth mom who feels good about us too.Whats wrong with us?We were told by a co worker that we werent a bi racial couple.....sorry.We are filled with love, big family, warm safe home. I'm a nurse my husband a plumber, nothing exciting. We do know how we want to parent and that education and home are very inportant ,the key.We are feeling down. My husband and i are giving til end of August then we want to stop looking. Its not that we "gave up" but we needed a closure/end point. Then we can move on with our lives.(sad as that may sound its ok)Say a prayer we succeed by August, we really want this to happen.

[trunks888]

Hello,
I'm sorry you are having such a hard time
you can be sure my prayers are with you,
May God bless you with a child.

Take care bye!

[MomTo1]

My opinion is that there is not a thing wrong with you. If you are going through Catholic Charities they do take a very long time to place. When I investigated them, I was told by a social worker that there is about a 4 year wait. I believed them because my neighbor waited 4 years for her child.

Are you going through CC? How long of a wait did they tell you? I also investigated the state of New Jersey and they told me I would have a 9 year wait!!!!

We used a non-profit adoption agency. My husband and I waited 6 weeks. We were overjoyed with them and will be using them for our second domestic placement in August.

Just my opinion about CC. I have never heard a good thing about them. Good luck to you!!!!

[carrington]

I have only been online for a very short amount of time. What I do know is that through CC I was told a 2 year wait. I went with a facilitator and both of my children I matched and had my babies with in 5 months. What state do you live in??Don't give up, you can try other options, just don't rely on one way to adopt there are so many. Let me know if I can be of any help with questions. I will do my best.

[joannemckay76]

We are going the independent route in WA state, we are not looking for a totally cc for a baby either. We can't really afford the high prices the facilatators charge. That is the reality of the situation for us.rthanks for your prayers and good thoughts joanne

[MomTo1]

Joanne...

May I ask what do you mean by going the independent route? Does that mean you are doing the searching or are you using a lawyer?

[carrington]

I know when I looked into Catholic Charities what they quoted me was the same I paid, (or less) then when I went through a facilitator. You may want to check out different ones. I have seen as low as 7000. and as high as 25k. Let me know if you need help.

[denised]

Ask the Domestic and International agencies how long you'll wait for either. International is faster

My brother in law just adopted from Russia, and it took about 8 months from application to bringing him home this Sunday !!!!!

He's 2, and is mixed European and some asian and he's too cute !! I can't wait to meet him finally !

I was told that if you WANT a kid, YOU WILL GET ONE ! ITS THAT SIMPLE . You've already made the decision to adopt and that's the first part - Dont get discouraged !

we're in the same boat and we all understand- Hang in there

[judd3705]

Hello

I saw your message from where I stand , over here far away in France ( Europe ).

I was adopted myself through the Catholic Church services in Montana in 1969 and I know that my adoptive parents had to wait quite a long time before getting me.

Be patient and as we say in France " Tout vient à qui sait attendre " ( Everything can happen to the one who knows how to wait ).

Good luck and God bless both of you !

Justin

[tobeafamily]

I understand the waiting and networking can be difficult. I've been there. July and August were the slowest months - got zero calls then. It should pick up in the fall. I hope that by sharing some of our 'tips' that you might be inspired to keep searching.

Here are the things we did to find our son:

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. This young lady is Ryan's birthmother.

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. Created a simple website and posted it on adopting.org, abcadoptions.com, preciouskids.org, all the search engines, and everywhere we could do it for free or a low fixed cost. We did get some e-mails and phone calls from prospective situations, though not a tremendous number.
ABC Adoptions has a 'birthmothers seeking situations' area where they send leads to you as one of their 'listing families' by email. Kay at Preciouskids will send you periodically all the 'available situations' from facilitators when you list with her.

5. We advertised in the local and some college newspapers. We didn't get much response, but others we're aware of made their connection this way. We also put an 'on screen' advertisement at one of the local movie theaters - that got us zero leads.

6. We also put a short 'ad' for ourselves including phone # and website as the 'signature line' on our e-mail and asked friends to do this as well. Don't honestly know if we got any leads from that one but we figured it was free and couldn't hurt, especially if people didn't strip signatures on forwards.

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.

Please don't hesitate to ask questions, we're happy to help.

Take care,

Regina, AMom to Ryan Joshua Thomas

[kahler1969]

My mother gave birth to a girl in either 1969 or 1970 in Lakeland Florida. The adoption agency was Catholic Charities. I have been looking for her for most of my life. I have been told that she was adopted to a family in New York. My mothers name is Carol Jean Kahler. If anyone has heard of someone looking for her, please message me. Thank you.

[HeatherKCS]

Hey Joanne,
Hang in there! My husband and I started looking into adoption 2 years ago - domestically and were discouraged at the wait time we were quoted. We put off action until last summer and we started up our interest again (After MUCH prayer, and signs from God that kept smacking us in the face!) We opened ourselves up to international adoption, an avenue that we had previously not thought was possible for us and found that people like us can adopt internationally. We are halfway through our wait from paperwork completion to adoption referral (@ 6 months) and we are eager to meet our daughter in China. God put us on this path and we didn't realize it until we truly listened to his answer to our prayers - the answer is not often what we think it will be. For us the answer was international adoption. For you, maybe its a longer wait time, maybe its another form of adoption, maybe its foster care to adoption. From the families I've met through the message boards for my agency, I've found that each family takes a different amount of time to complete their paperwork and all of them realized that their wait was the perfect time so that they could meet the daughter, or son, who was destined to be theirs. We're on God's time and he has a plan for each of us! I will pray for your family and I encourage you to pray and listen to God's direction!
Peace - Heather


Hi, I've been posting on adoption.com for awhile now.We started this over two and half years ago.....a long time waiting and networking our hearts out. We spoke to our parish priests and they werent very supportive. Its hard when we just want to be parents and find a birth mom who feels good about us too.Whats wrong with us?We were told by a co worker that we werent a bi racial couple.....sorry.We are filled with love, big family, warm safe home. I'm a nurse my husband a plumber, nothing exciting. We do know how we want to parent and that education and home are very inportant ,the key.We are feeling down. My husband and i are giving til end of August then we want to stop looking. Its not that we "gave up" but we needed a closure/end point. Then we can move on with our lives.(sad as that may sound its ok)Say a prayer we succeed by August, we really want this to happen.[/quote]

[Poleczech]

First, I'd like to say I am sorry you are discouraged by the wait, and that I do NOT think there is ANYTHING wrong with you. IMHO, CC is not very proactive in helping adoptive couples. We didn't use CC mainly because they told us we were "too old" to adopt through them (yet they gladly took our money and did our homestudy -- go figure). We are using an independent agency that advertises nationwide, and have also posted on free open adoption sites, as well as one site with a reasonable fee for posting our website. From the time we were officially "in the book" with our agency to the time of the first real contact (who we are now matched with ) was about 9 months. We are meeting the expentant mom tomorrow to discuss open adoption plans -- she is due June 12.

But we are also looking at things from another prospective too -- we tried fertility treatments for 15 years before starting our adoption journey -- from the time we were "officially" waiting to the time of the birth of this baby, if all goes through, will be just under a year -- for us, a small wait compared to our years of inferility struggles.

As someone else posted above me, good things come to those who wait -- and even though you may be waiting a long time, it can suddenly change and you can find yourselves parents in no time at all from the you find out you might be expecting. So please hang in there -- your child is out there -- you just haven't met him/her yet.

[HBV]

Actually, we went through Catholic Charities and took baby home 9 months later----only 4 months after the home study was done. Though they're all Catholic agencies, they operate independently. In states w/ high teen pregnancy rates, for instance, you may find that CC has a more rapid placement schedule. One thing you might want to consider is checking to see if the placement rate w/ CC is the same in a neighboring state or city. Within the state, they'll usually only charge you a nominal fee (I think it was about $200) and will share the profile and homestudy information. In our case, a lot of the counseling and other fees didn't come due until you were matched, so we wouldn't have had to pay duplicate fees.

Our experience with them was just fine, and our coordinator said she'd never had a family wait much more than a year--sometimes they even have more birthmothers than waiting families. Just wanted to let you know that the experience with CC can vary. Good luck to you.

[AwaitingBeloved]

Joanne, that is so long to wait. And when you want something so badly, waiting a day is painful. I remember that feeling.

I remember wanting to know when we could move on, too. I hated not knowing what our future would hold. Not knowing if we'd be parents or when. I wanted to accept that we would be childless and to just love my DH. I knew I'd have a void for life, but I wanted to move on.

DH urged me to keep the faith. And I'm so glad that he did. In December I was ready to give up. He asked me to give it one more year (this would be through Feb 07) and I agreed since we paid through that long anyway. Mid December we received a call from a young couple who was only beginning to think about adoption. On New Year's Eve she called to tell us that they decided to move forward with an adoption plan and that they picked us. On March 6, we were there when DD was born. We've been with her from the start.

I'm so glad we didn't give up. But I remember that awful feeling of what is wrong with us? Why can't we have kids or parent when there are so many idiots out there killing their kids in garbage bags in a river or throwing them in dumpsters or leaving them in mall bathroom stalls? What is wrong with us???

I even replied to a newspaper article I saw in the fall about a baby boy who was abandoned in a public restroom. The news staff wrote back saying that they had many inquiries about the baby and are comforted in knowing that so many kind and warm families are out there ready and willing to take in a child who has been left like that and they have no doubt that the child will be placed in a good home. I was kinda sad that I wasn't the only one to reply.. isn't that silly?

I also did what Regina suggested with the networking. And we had an agency who was also networking for us. It didn't help us in finding our match, but it helped me in knowing I was doing something.

Hang in there. I know you want to move on. I know you are so ready for the next step in your life, with or without a child. Just hang on. Tomorrow your world could be completely different and this will be a memory.