[Candace]

Hi, everyone!
After months of searching and looking at agencies and facilitators across the country, my dh and I finally decided (in July) to go with A Loving Choice Adoption Services in Indiana for the adoption of our second child. We were impressed with the information they sent us, including their extensive positive references and some of the information we found posted here on this site and on other sites. They claimed to have 23 birthmothers working with them. We were primarily interested adopting a biracial little girl, but signed for the full contract (Oh My God, over $5000!) to give ourselves maximum chances for a match. My mother took out a personal loan to help us with this expense, at great inconvenience and expense to herself and with our profound thanks.

So, here it is two weeks later, and suddenly there are supposedly only 8 birthmothers working with them, and most of them are due next March or May (how do they even know they're pregnant this soon, my dh is asking), and only one biracial situation (they had been actively recruiting on other boards for homestudy ready adoptive parents interested in biracial situations). My husband has had me call and email A Loving Choice numerous times. but we have not gotten answers or even responses to all our questions. I am not saying these people are scamming us, I'm just wondering what the problem is.

Our question is: Is this type of thing common with marketing services or facilitators, and they always do manage to come through in the end with some type of match before the contract period is up (so we should just Keep the Faith?) And exactly how stupid were we to have handed over so much money to these people upfront? We are now worried sick that we have wasted a large sum of money for basically nothing, and I guess we would like some type of reassurance or "you should have bee n more careful" from someone.

Thank you.

[browntap]

Candace,
I'm so sorry your experience has been less than postive. We too received their info and were impressed with them. But we had decided that we would not pick an agency/facilitator/networker that required money upfront beyond the minimal application fee. I would continue to try and get through to them, you know what they say about the squeaky wheel. I wish you the best and hope things turn around for you!
Blessings,
Tammi