[mercy]

My husband and I are just starting the process of our second adoption. Our son's adoption was private and open and AMAZING! The birthmom sought us out through a family connection. God has truly blessed us!!! Because we had such a great experience before, we are optimistic as we wade back into the adoption waters again. We also know that no 2 adoptions are alike.

My questions are these:
* Have you posted your family profile online?
* If so, where?
* What was / has been your experience?
* Are you approaching this with the help of an agency, or as a private adoption? (In other words, who is your professional support?)
* What sites do you recommend?
* Any that we should specifically stay away from?
* Do you have any "Words of wisdom"?

Thank you for your input. It is greatly appreciated!!!

-Mercy

[GregDeanna]

We are in the same situation as you are except for our first adoption we went through an agency but found our daughters bmom on our own via a business card that we created. We decided for our second adoption that we would just network on our own and do a private adoption. We are looking into different websites to post our profile on and think we will chose parentprofiles.com. I have chatted with a couple bmom's who said that they liked this website. We are almost done with our homestudy and hope to have our profile on a website by the end of June.

[Sarah0518]

We contracted with a private agency. Most our family is located in rural areas, and adoption is mostly unheard of. We let them know and asked them to spread the word, but thought it unlikely for us to have any luck from word of mouth. When our agency mentioned parent profiles, something clicked. I was sure that was where our lead would come from.

And it did. We activated our profile late Feb 2003 and matched early June 2004. Our son was born 2-1/2 weeks later. So, by no means did it happen fast, but it did happen.

We have a very open adoption. We visited the bmom and bgma before ds was born. It was like meeting long lost family. Right now we live in diff states. Eventually they are hoping to move to our state to be closer to other family member (and ds). Until then we call and e-mail regularly. Bmom was able to come visit for a weekend right before Christmas. The bdad, by concidence, had already moved to our state before ds was born, and we have been building a relationship with him via phone. We are hoping to meet him next month shortly before ds turns 1.

[kllee4]

OK, to piggy back on this, I have a couple of questions.

If you use one of the more popular sites mentioned here and have an agency, where do they come in and what responsibilities do the padoptive parents, pbmoms and the agency you use have? How is TPR handled? Is travel on your own? Do the pbmoms receive counseling and, if so, from where? Do the padoptive parents screen the calls and then work with the agency in determining the legitimacy of the pregnancy, etc.?

Thanks so much for any info. I always wondered how it all worked out. I have always heard such great things but never fully understood how it all worked.

Thanks and good luck to everyone.

[ses1230]

Mercy,

We brought our baby girl home two months ago. Her bmom found our website and contacted us. I had posted our website on many of the popular dear birthmother letter sites. I'll PM you a list b/c I'm not sure if we are allowed to name them specifically.

We had our email addy and 800 number on the website. We received many contacts - some legitimate, some scamming. Most pbmoms contacted us via email. My only words of wisdom would be not to get too excited about every contact (like we did, lol!).

Since we didn't use the agency, we found a Quad-A attorney to help us through the process.

If you use an agency, the pbmom will need to contact them and say that she is interested in you, then the agency should help you from there with matching, verifying pg, etc. The agency should provide the counseling - this is something you should ask when you are researching agencies. If the pbmom is not in a state where your agency is licensed, you sometimes need to hire another agency, in that state, to assist you.

If you chose to have an 800 number, then you screen the calls, and believe me, your heart skips a beat every time the phone rings! If you don't want to have an 800 number, then whomever you designate (lawyer or agency) will screen them.

This is just what I have found in our adoption journey, I'm sure other people have different experiences! Good luck!

ses1230

[mercy]

Thank you for your responses. We are really hoping to do do another private adoption, with an Adoption attornet and private counseling. It seems if you have a match, you don't really need the agency. What do you think?

-Mercy