[enerad]

This question is for those who work with facilitators who don't do the final steps of adoption.

Would you work with an agency or an attorney? What are the plus and minus to both?

Our homestudy is with an agency, but in our last situation we had to hire an attorney to do the birthfather paperwork.

The expectant mom will be in the same state (California), but on the other end of the state, therefore the agency will connect with another agency(?) to work with the birthmom, and we will have to pay that agencies fees.

Do attorneys do that as well?

I want as much information I can get before we contact either one. We have some time to make these kind of decisions.

Final question: Would you ask a birthmom whom she would rather work with?

Thanks for any information.

Darene

[Sarah0518]

We made our match via our on-line profile with someone out of state, so we had similar questions to yours. Paying fees to numerous agencies would have been a financial strain, yet we wanted more than just legal services available for the bmom. We used the American Academy of Adoption Lawyers site and were able to find a lawyer fairly close to where the bmom lived. Well the lawyer works right next door to an adoption agency, and although most of the work she does is for them, she also does adoptions outside of the agency too. Because of this, she and the agency share a social worker between their offices. Several counseling sessions for "K" with the social worker are built into the fee we paid to the lawyer. "K" was ecstatic when we told her about the counseling. She's already used one session that I am aware of.

Call around and perhaps you can find something similar? Good luck! For me picking a lawyer was one of the most stressful decisions we made.