[Nelson]

chime in

[PHaley]

Hi everyone,

I see that plenty of you have read but not responded to this thread ? well am fairly new to adoption and though I have my mind set and steps in motion my situation makes it so quite a few people think I should not be adopting right now! with that said I came to this thread for insight and support and the words of those more experienced.

My thinking is that your WHOLE community (LOCAL AND AFAR) should be involved...from freinds and family to local doctors, churches, schools, community centers, lawyers offices or with anyone else that may hear of or have avested interest in bmothers to be and the well being of the future of their children.

I actually had a cool idea that when DBML is ready I will hopefully try...and that is to make mini booklets with just the right info and leave multiple copies wherever there is a possiblity a woman thinking of adoption for her child might see it. I still have to see if it is legal but I think this could get the word out quiker and leave the woman w/ something in hand from the start

This is my little comment, excuse it being so long

Good luck to all in your journeys and I hope to see more posts soon, I think this is a wonderful topic.

[Sidswife]

I am worried that I did something wrong. I sent out an e-mail to all of my friends and family asking them for help to get the word out that we are adopting. I asked them to send it to all of their contacts etc. I put our email address and the birthparent hotline # to our agency for a PBM to contact. Is this ok? I am nervous now that I may have done something wrong to jeopardize our situation or hurt our agency. Please help!

[Nelson]

[i] I am nervous now that I may have done something wrong to jeopardize our situation or hurt our agency. Please help! [/b]

On the contrary, this is exactly the right thing to do. Soliciting the help of your "friends and family network" is a great way to get the word out, and I'm pretty sure it's legal everywhere (since it costs nothing and is essentiall a private communication, you are not "advertising"). For those of you who feel awkward about reaching out, the F&FN is a great, safe place to start.

Open adoption requires openness; your baby will come from outside you. So it's important to get the word out any way you feel comfortable doing so. I've heard lots of wonderful stories from people who've connected with their children's BPs this way.

The one thing you want to be careful of in future communications is to be sure to include a line that says something like "feel free to call our agency directly, and please tell them you are calling about us." Agencies get calls from EPs all the time, and if its not clear that they are calling for you, will treat them as just another general call, rather than a targeted one. Don't stress it this time, but cover yourself in the future.

Good luck!

[lisa in venice]

I am putting together a website and including a link to it in a letter (mass email) to AAAA attorneys in local states with favorable laws. We are interested in a fairly open placement so I think keeping the search within the Western States makes more sense. I am not looking for them to market for me but if the have situtioan and no families to offer we might just get lucky without spending any money.

lisa
http://lisanvenice.tripod.com/lisaan...age/index.html

[twyla]

Hi, everyone!

We built a Dear Birth Parents letter on a free web site and I had real cute Teddy Bear business cards made up with a small amount of info and our web site address on them. I've been not only passing them out to friends and family, but to some of the customers in our shoe repair shop who have been with us for a long time, friendly strangers in the grocery store, clerks at cash registers, and just about anyone who seems to be receptive. I'm probably not accomplishing a thing, but it sure feels better than just sitting and twiddling my thumbs!

There ain't no way I'm going to pray for any more patience. I have had my share of trials to teach me what patience I have, thank you! So keeping busy keeps my mind off the wait.

[joannemckay76]

I am telling every OB/GYN i have ever worked with or know personally. I have gone Adoption.com PP and posted on another free web site.We have made business cards and given them to anyone who asks.I mentioned our search in every Christmas letter, emailed with networking tools on PP. So far nibbles and a couple scams we abruptly picked up on. I wish i could say it all works but i feel deep down we will find a birthmom thru someone we know or my work place, not on the internet. Joanne

[Janissb]

I've got the DBML, business cards, emails that are forwarded, our own web site, postings on the company bullentin board and print ads in local papers. We are also on parentprofiles.com and a couple of free web sites. Since early March we've talked to 3 birthmothers. One chose us, but then decided to keep her baby. Two addtional birthmom have requested our profile from our lawyer.

Just started with the business cards, so hopefully we'll see some responses with that. I am also researching, how search engines work to see more ways to attract people to our web site.

http://home.earthlink.net/~janisandkevin

keeping our fingers crossed.

[crayola]

We have our profile up on Adoption.com's Parent Profiles and have included a newsletter in our Christmas card to all of our friends, work colleagues, and relatives, asking them to spread the word about us. We are now doing selected mailings to contacts at hospitals, etc. that our home study agency gave us and some we came up with. Next (soon) we are going to do some newpaper advertising (my sister got her contacts for both her kids' birthmothers through newspapers) and list ourselves with ABC and some of their links. We have had some nibbles through our parent profile and in answer to an inquiry I responded to on ABC's posting board, which is heartening, but not the right match for us yet. We want to do this on our own without going through an agency or facilitator, but sometimes it seems like so much wheel-spinning I do wonder if any of it will work. We plan to give it six more months (we have been at this for over a year), and I hope we will be successful.

[HappyMom29]

Gee --after reading every one else's postings, I feel like we aren't doing enough. Yes, we tell anyone and everyone of our hope to adopt. We have our profiels on file with 6-7 attorneys in our state (we are going private adoption). No web sites, no posting profiles on any of the usual places....

However --despite all that --in less than 2 months, we have had 3 potential opportunities already. 2 of them are currently pending...(waiting to hear if the bparents like you is hard to do!!). We were trying to keep the costs reasonable --we spent a lot of $ on the fertilityh tx over the last several years. We're just hoping one of these attorneys comes thru for us.. perhaps silly of us to put all our eggs in "one" basket, but so far the process seems to be doing it's thing.

Good luck to everyone

Carlynn

[joannemckay76]

I think you are doing plenty, truth is...most folks can't afford to have 6-7 attorneys, we are are working with one.If you have to pay a retainer fee for each that can get expensive. But it is a way to spread the adoption search too. Sounds like you are doing fine, Good luck to you. Joanne

[twyla]

Hi again, everyone!

I just wanted to pop in on this thread and report back that networking truly does work! During my no-packing/no-traveling vacation the last week of June, (that's a stay-at-home vacation to those of you who went, "Huh?"), I put out 12 informational packets in thrift and consignment stores around town. All of these places, except one, are places I had on my list to shop during my vacation. Guess which one my match resulted from?

The packet consisted of a cover page on card stock (so the pictures would show up better) with a short paragraph explaining that we were trying to get the word out to the world --We were ready to adopt. I used a recent picture of us having fun with our dog and then used some of us with the newborn twins we recently fostered so it would be easier to imagine us as parents of a baby. On the next few pages was our "Dear Prospective Birth Parents" letter, then I added one more card stock page with four pictures of our home nursery (we have one at work too). I showed all four walls with some slight overlapping so they could get a feel for how the room really looks. I gave only two ways to contact me, through e-mail or through my agency. I don't believe it is a good idea to give such an abundance of personal information (tons of it in the letter) and then provide your phone number and address to boot. There's too many evil people in the world. I figured that a woman sincerely wanting to place would be willing to contact my agency if she were interested enough in us, especially since I stated that my agency also counseled those women wanting to parent.

You should know that this was done because I wanted to feel that I was contributing to my agency's efforts and not just sitting on my behind waiting. In no way did I ever really believe a viable contact would come of it.

I placed the first packet on June 23rd and the last on June 28th. The important packet was placed June 25th at the place I hadn't planned to go, indeed, had never been to before! On July 10th I received a call from my agency to tell me that a lady stating she had received one of these packets wanted to talk to me. Her best friend had brought it home from the place she worked. I called the phone number and we hit it off immediately. She is due Oct. 4th, I've met most of her family and friends and everyone approves of us! This match has been covered in prayer since we started working with our agency one and a half years ago so I believe God used my desire to network to bring us together with the lovely lady who will be our son's first mother. Yes, it's a BOY! (She had me pick her up and go with her to the ultrasound a few days later.)

To all of you who are still yearning to be parents, I wish you success. The most important advice I can give is to leave no stone unturned and be sincere with all of your words coming straight from your heart. You will find the perfect match that way.

[tobeafamily]

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. Got a catchy domain name, built a basic website, and linked it to adopting.org, abcadoptions.com, preciouskids.org, all the search engines and pretty well everywhere that was free or low cost. We did get some leads. ABC will also put you on a distribution list of their 'birthmothers looking for situations' response form. Kay at preciouskids will send you a list of all the situations she hears of.

5. Advertised in the newspapers (local and college) and put an on-screen advertisiment at a local movie theater. We got no hits at all from the movie theater, a few from the newspaper.

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.

If we can help more, please shout! Best of luck.

Regina

[TJny]

Hi Tobeafamily -

Did you include a small photo of yourselves on the business cards?

Thanks to everyone for sharing all of these great networking ideas! It really does help. Even if we don't get leads from every idea, at least we feel like we are doing something proactive instead of just WAITING!

Best of luck to everyone!!
TJ

[tobeafamily]

TJ - we didn't, have seen others who have though. I thought they looked terrific.

HTH

Regina, AMom to Ryan Joshua Thomas