[aclee]

I know there was a post somewhere around her about doing a sort of independent adoption by advertising etc, even when that is not allowed in your state. I had a couple questions and I can't for the life of me recall who had the info on it.

We live in an agency only state. It makes adoption very expensive. As I understood the process it worked like this.

I can find a local social worker to do our home study. As long as the home study complies with whatever state we adopt from, we are fine.

Then I can advertise etc in whatever states allow that. Work with a referral or attny...whatever...as long as the state the situation is in allows it.

Match etc. Find an attny (if I advertise) in that state, and complete the rest of the adoption.

have our local social worker provide updates and post placement to whatever state the adoption all took place in.

Never involve my own state by also finalizing in the state the situation was in.


Does this sound right? Has anyone done this? Advertised or worked with an attny to find situations even though they are from a state that doesn't allow it?

Thanks!

[loveajax]

aclee, i remember that too...I had a situation of an "independent adoption" pop up (though it went nowhere), and my agency was still going to charge me like $11K. i seem to recall it was somahkun (sp?) who talked about this scenario. good luck!!

btw, I don't know what your income situation is but my agency does have a scholarship program for "harder to place" babies for people who qualify income-wise. If you want the contact info, just PM me. I don't know if it is "free" or whatever, but they seem to have a lot of money!!

[BrandyHagz]

Not all states (in fact, very few states) allow non-residents to finalize in their state.

So you're limited there.

[EZ2Luv]

I rememeber the tread as well and still cannot for the life of me figure out how it works. I am not doubting the person who gave that information, but I know how MA is when it come to adoption. I only wish that DSS was that strict when it comes to foster care system.
Anyhow, as I said, I still can't figure it out with adoptions in MA. The only thing that I could think of is having PBM call the agaency the PAPs are using.

EZ

[aclee]

Originally Posted by BrandyHagz

Not all states (in fact, very few states) allow non-residents to finalize in their state.

So you're limited there.

Really? I had no idea. I know some do. FL I see all the time. You don't even have to go back to FL to finalize there. We finalized in MO with no problems at all...

Do you know what states don't? Anyone know where I can find that kind of info??

[devildogwife]

Originally Posted by aclee

Really? I had no idea. I know some do. FL I see all the time. You don't even have to go back to FL to finalize there. We finalized in MO with no problems at all...

Do you know what states don't? Anyone know where I can find that kind of info??

Iowa allowed us to finalize there. Our court appearanced was waived by the judge because Cameron was in the PICU.

[adoptionauthor]

You should consult your adoption attorney...they should know. If your attorney doesn't know, get a different one.

I thought that my state was agency only and I was wrong. We had a home study completed by an agency ($1000) and are now advertising in the largest paper in our state and online through our website (which is basically a web version of our letter/profile). We've been "waiting" for 2 months.

I wholeheartedly encourage independent open adoptions (if you're not open to openness choose an agency). You can find a chart about adoption laws in the Adoptive Families Magazine Adoption Guide (www.adoptivefamiliesmagainze.com) but it's not 100% correct so lean on that attorney!

Good luck.

[aclee]

Originally Posted by adoptionauthor

You should consult your adoption attorney...they should know. If your attorney doesn't know, get a different one.

I thought that my state was agency only and I was wrong. We had a home study completed by an agency ($1000) and are now advertising in the largest paper in our state and online through our website (which is basically a web version of our letter/profile). We've been "waiting" for 2 months.

I wholeheartedly encourage independent open adoptions (if you're not open to openness choose an agency). You can find a chart about adoption laws in the Adoptive Families Magazine Adoption Guide (www.adoptivefamiliesmagainze.com) but it's not 100% correct so lean on that attorney!

Good luck.

Our adoption attny is not in our state, she was in the state we adopted from. Here in our state, there aren't any real "adoption" attny's cause they aren't allowed to place infants without an agency...

[megaphonemo]

So, more importantly, are you doing this again? Have you officially decided to go for number 2??

Exciting times!! Your Ty and my Katie are very close in age, so your posts sometimes read my mind, it seems... Not this thread though, we are done!!

Mega

[aclee]

We are "gearing up" I guess we'll call it. I'm starting the research and development (my DH is a software engineer, I have to put things in his terms) while DH works on the design (figuring out where Ty will sleep if another kid is in our room...we need to finish renovations on the 2 bedrooms)

But I've found a couple options today that with the increased tax credit (12K+ for 2009) and what DH gets reimbursed from work, 3K...we might be able to pull this off.

Like any adoption plan it will have to pass a lot of what ifs, but YES...we're moving.

The huge giant, still to be had discussion is if we will be requesting gender...I think no, but there is a little tiny, "who" sized person inside that says...maybe you should ask for a girl!...but I don't think we will. I think we'll let God pick, just like he picked Ty for us

[Stormster]

I'm not sure this is what you are asking but we finalized an independent adoption in an agency only state.

[SupaModel]

Originally Posted by aclee

We are "gearing up" I guess we'll call it. I'm starting the research and development (my DH is a software engineer, I have to put things in his terms) while DH works on the design (figuring out where Ty will sleep if another kid is in our room...we need to finish renovations on the 2 bedrooms)

But I've found a couple options today that with the increased tax credit (12K+ for 2009) and what DH gets reimbursed from work, 3K...we might be able to pull this off.

Like any adoption plan it will have to pass a lot of what ifs, but YES...we're moving.

The huge giant, still to be had discussion is if we will be requesting gender...I think no, but there is a little tiny, "who" sized person inside that says...maybe you should ask for a girl!...but I don't think we will. I think we'll let God pick, just like he picked Ty for us

Sooo excited for you guys!!!

[mommamarci]

First, we were able to finalize in Ohio.

Second, not sure what kind of budget you are looking at, but our adoption of Spencer was less than 14k. With the tax credit and your dh's company reimbursement, you could get it all back (if you can find it up front...) I think you know the agency I worked with, but let me know if you want more info.

[aclee]

Originally Posted by Stormster

I'm not sure this is what you are asking but we finalized an independent adoption in an agency only state.

You did? With out an agency? How did I not know that?

Right now it's looking like I would like to work with a local "someone" or something (agency) to do our home study (and then use them for post placement) and use a facilitator (thanks to those that have PM'd with me today!) to find a match. Ideally I would like to then finalize out of state to minimize the "agency" costs locally, but it's hard to say how it would go down. It would be great if I could match with an emom though the facilitator, who sets up support systems etc for the emom. Then find an attny by her who could do all the legal work, and then we would fly back to finalize.

Now if someone could just line up that exact scenario for me for around 15K for EVERYTHING (even travel!)...that would be fabulous. Any takers? Anyone?
We would love to match with an emom in MO again so that we could fly to one place for visits. St. Louis would be even better. So I e-mailed our attny there (who doesn't do matches, only legal work for identified adoptions) to see if she knew anyone locally that does the leg work of matching emoms...

I haven't heard back from HER yet, but I communicated with her assistant back and forth a couple times...mainly about dogs. Hopefully we don't get charged for that.

[aclee]

Originally Posted by mommamarci

First, we were able to finalize in Ohio.

Second, not sure what kind of budget you are looking at, but our adoption of Spencer was less than 14k. With the tax credit and your dh's company reimbursement, you could get it all back (if you can find it up front...) I think you know the agency I worked with, but let me know if you want more info.

You are talking agency fees though right? I want to spend 15K, or there abouts for everything...home study, travel, post placement, finalization...the whole shebang...