[toni7]

Hello -
My husband and I are an interracial couple (African America/Caucasian) looking to adopt a biracial infant. We are working with Holy Family Services in Pasadena California and our in the process of waiting for our birth-mom to walk through their doors. We are wondering what else we can do to assist in locating our birth mom. Does anyone have experience they wish to share? Because we are working with Holy Family, we can only work with birth moms' that are in California - they must be in the jurisdiction of their four offices; Pasadena, Ventura, Orange County and San Bernardino. We have called the maternity homes and forwarded our profiles to the ones that would accept. Any information and suggestions would greatly be appreciated. Thank you, Toni7

[Support2Adopt]

I don't quite understand why you can only locate a potential Birthmother in the state of CA. We're in CA, have adopted 4 newborns, but were never given any restructions as to which state we could adopt from.
JJ

[toni7]

Well let me try to explain. We located a birth mom in Santa Barbara and our agency began to explain to us that they can only work with birth moms that are in their jurisdiction. We were lucky the birth mom was to deliver in Ventura, but she decided to go another way - so here we are again.

[tobeafamily]

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

[toni7]

Regina - thank you very much for this information. My husband and I truley appreciate you taking the time to share it with us. We will keep you posted on our success, and thank you for being open to future questions. Toni7

[Support2Adopt]

Originally posted by toni7
Well let me try to explain. We located a birth mom in Santa Barbara and our agency began to explain to us that they can only work with birth moms that are in their jurisdiction. We were lucky the birth mom was to deliver in Ventura, but she decided to go another way - so here we are again.

I understand about only being able to work with potential Birthmothers in their jurisdiction. This most likely would be the counties they are licensed in. However, they should still be able to handle an adoption for you even if the potential Birthmother lived elsewhere. The potential Birthmother would have to go through an agency or attorney in her area, then her representative and yours would work together. It would be extra money for you as you would be responsible to pay whoever she is working with for counseling, relinguishment forms, etc. You might want to look into this further because it seems you are really being limited at the moment.
JJ