[coroos]

We are new members here and in the process of trying to adopt an older child from Guatemala. There are several children on photolistings who could be good possibilities for us. If the listing agency checks out ok, is this generally an ok way to go? We'd love to hear about people's experiences with this. Thanks a lot.

[annaguat]

I would think it is good route to go. With our first adoption we adopted a sibling group that was ready to be put on a photo listing. We wanted to adopted slightly older children at that time and finding our children first worked better then sign up for a certain program. Hopefully some other people that adopted older children will also respond. Anna

[candkss]

I am using an agency that if they have a waiting child the do use the photo listing. So far I really love my agency. PM me if you want to know who they are

[P.E.Z.]

This is kind of a tough one for me because,
like you, we felt called to adopt a toddler,
we found our 3rd daughter on a photolisting .
We signed with the agency July 2005 and it
has been a nightmare , one issue after the other.
We are now waiting to go to Family court , and that is
still weeks away.
We were told when we signed we would be bringing
our daughter home March 2006 , at the very latest.
This is our 2nd adoption from Guatemala , we know how
an adoption from Guatemala SHOULD go.
We have had to involve our attorney .
With that said .......I would still have signed with this
adoption agency as they are the only one our
daughter was listed with.
We truly believe God has put this little girl in our path
to be our daughter .

I would STRONGLY encourage you to FIRST check out
any agency with waiting children BEFORE looking at their photolist.

If it's a good agency, I say go for it!!!!

[DPline]

There are good agencys that photo list, but please, please, please check out the agency throughly before signing. Check the agency feedback sticky and PM people for their experiences as well as post a thread asking for people to PM you with feedback. It is so easy to be sucked in my pictures of darling children only to be stuck with a terrible agency in a long, drawn out adoption. (Not saying this would be the case, just saying do your homework first! )

Good luck!

[lcpd]

This sort of happened to us at the beginning. We searched the photolistings and found a little girl, from Eastern Europe, not Guatemala. We absoluately fell in love with her. The agency that "had" her was bad from the start. The person running it was like, send me "$30,000 and we will have her to you in four months." We found out that particular country doesn't even allow their children to be photolisted and that this particular baby is probably no longer available. Perhaps it is different for Guatemala, but we scared away from photolistings from that point on. Most agencies have actual waiting lists of parents and don't need a waiting list for babies, except for special needs and older children. Just be careful! I'm sure plenty of people out there had a great experience doing it this way. Good luck!

[PabloandCarlosMama]

I'm in the processing of adopting two older children. At the time, I had been researching two agencies, attended their informational meetings, and asked folks I knew who had used them for the adoptions of their children.

Then, months later, I saw the photolisting on one of the agencies' sites of these two boys. At that point, I knew the agency was reputable, and then I took it several steps further by getting as much information as could on the children from the agency, and then they did some follow-up and took additional photos and DVDs of the children for me. They also allowed me to travel to Guatemala with their case worker to meet the children(pre-referral)Because the children were older, I felt like it was so important to get to know them and see if we could become a family. So, I know that the listing was the deciding factor for me because of the children, but I also was comfortable with the agency that listed them.

That being said, I agree with the other postings as far as making sure the agency is reputable on the front end, and then have fun getting to know the child

Good luck!

[dspakowsky]

Keep in mind that if you accept a referral before you're "paper ready", the adoption process will take much longer. It can take up to 4 months to get totally paper ready. So, since you have that child "on-hold", they'll be in foster care that much longer.

Take care!

[coroos]

Thanks so much for all the feedback. It's really helpful. We are just about paper ready. Most of the agencies wouldn't talk to us until we were paper ready. This is great, since there's no sense having these kids wait longer than they need to. We will keep checking out agencies.