[Hopefulaz]

Hi Everyone,

I am struggling right now with understanding how the different types of facilitating an adoption work. We just found out that it will be difficult to use an actual facilitator in Arizona as the courts will not recognise the cost involved. Which I assume means that we cannot claim them back through a tax credit.

We are now wondering about using an attorney assisted adoption but I am not quite sure how the process works - I am assuming that it bares little resemblance to the desperate housewives couple who are currently adopting through an attorney??????? I have contacted one attorney and she says the process will cost about $3000 which seems really cheap. Would anyone mind sharing their experiences with adoption attorneys with me either on the site or you can p.m. me if it concerns a specific lawyer.

Thank-you to all you great and clever people out there, this process is so much easier with this huge network of support.

[ses1230]

Hi,

Our adoption was private. DD's bmom contacted us through a website we had. After she decided to match with us, I found a lawyer through the Quad A website - www.adoptionattorneys.org . That lawyer represented us and he helped us find another lawyer to represent DD's birthmom. (The same lawyer can't represent both parties). We finalized in birthmom's state, so we did not need an attorney in our state.

As for the cost - ours was a little more expensive than what you were told. But my experience is attorney costs can vary somewhat.

We also made sure that our attorney could set up counseling for the birthmom.

If you use an attorney, please do make sure that all adoption expenses go through him/her. My info, although it is a few years old, states that in AZ only medical, legal, counseling and up to $1000 in expenses - more than that has to be court approved.

Stephanie

[Hopefulaz]

Thats interesting, so you actually set up an internet site of your own - did you use someone to help you with that process? How did you get people to look at it? I spoke to an attorney yesterday and he recommended making up business cards and handing them out to anyone you could think of I guess linking that to a web site would work really well! I think I am just a bit nervous about putting ourselves out there in that way - the attourney says I need to loose some of my "British reserve".

Thanks for the advice anyway