[Princess Purr]

I do not want you to tell me the name of your agency in the post (because I don't think you are allound LOL) But I was wondering what made you choice the agency you did. I just have 35 different info packets that I'm going through! There are soooo many!!! It would be great if you could PM me with any agencies to avoid or ones to check out so I can try to narrow my list.
We are hoping to adopt a girl as young as possible, we were thinking of adopting a baby girl and a toddler (girl or boy) but now because of the cost I think we might have to just do one at a time.
Last night a telemarker was nice enough to call (LOL) normally I just hang up, but this one had a really good deal on a line of credit so I applied! Now i just need to get a few house projects done and pick an agnecy!!!

[kimber413]

Hi. You might want to take a look at the packets, and then go through the agency feedback list at the top of the forum. You can pm people and ask for their experiences with a specific agency that way, and won't be bombarded with all of us who were happy with ours.

[Alison_inPA]

Princess, you're going to get some controversial answers to this question, I suspect. But I know just how you feel about the agency choice. It's very difficult because there are so many choices. In the end, I would suggest you trust your gut feeling about which agency reflects your personal values and attitudes about the whole adoption process.

In the end, we decided to go with the agency that we felt was responsive to our concerns and questions. Some of the big players in this game are very good with the PR but not so good one-on-one with follow-through. Ultimately, it was also preferable for us to go with a true social service agency, not an agency that only does adoptions. We chose one that has been established in our community for a long time and whose goal is improving the lives of families of all kinds through adoption and other social programs. They happen to have a religious affiliation, but that wasn't the primary draw for us. Another we considered was similar in structure but not religious.

Even those most (maybe all?) adoption agencies are non-profit, you definitely get a different money vibe from some of them. There were some that were only interested in very carefully-selected families for very narrow programs. There were others that basically said they'd give us answers to our questions only after we paid an application fee. We decided against those. As it happened, we ended up with an agency that has a pay-as-you-go fee structure rather than requiring us to put out all or most of the adoption money upfront. This strategy leaves you with little protection if things don't work out.

In the end, we also picked a hosting program, which has other criteria involved. Fortunately we found a hosting program with the kind of agency we wanted to deal with. We're not very far along in our journey yet, but we haven't had cause to regret our agency choice up until now.

Good luck with your choice!

[dlhall]

We chose our agency based on three main things:
1. gut instinct--we went to many different agency presentations and when we went to our agency's info. meeting, we left with a good feeling.
2. location--we wanted an agency that was local, so I could speak and deal with people face to face--I didn't want a stranger over the phone deciding my future
3. references/reputation--we knew people who had used the agency and they spoke highly of it and then we did some basic research and found out the agency had a really good reputation.

We kind of went into blindly and although we did do some research, the main reason was our gut--we just felt like it was the right place and it was. We now have a beautiful daughter and I can't wait to get our son.

Liz

[sunstroke]

tough choice and too many factors.

I chose ours based on a few factors.

The first was, on our state's website, they had some adoption statistics. We chose the agency that had the highest # of adoptions. Unfortunately they didn't distinguish internation vs domestic, but felt it was a good sign.

The second was just gut feel. We chose to go with a "religious" association not that we are religious.

The third was that I liked 2 payments that included everything except travel costs and submitting for Federal crap.

Honestly I only received information from one agency (looked at a couple on line though)

Based on what people say on this board, it's seems like shooting fish in a barrel. Most likely you'll get a decent agency. Some aspects you'll like, and some you won't, but in the end you get your kid and that's all that matters.

Scott

[Kendal]

I think what everyone else said is true about going with your gut. We just completed our second adoption and went with the same agency for the second adoption as well. When we first started the process, I spoke with about 10 different agencies. The one we went with the ultimately felt right. The person was friendly and responsive to our question. They were local, although that was not a huge factor for us. Also they were accrediated and not umbrelled under another agency. Any good agency will give you names and numbers of their clients. As you narrow down you list I would ask to talk to some that have receintly completed their adoptions. Feel free to PM me if you are interested in the name of my agency. I would recommend them to anyone.

[GCS]

I knew we wanted to adopt two children and that they would likely not be siblings. That being the case, the first thing I did was discuss this with my "short list" of agencies. A few of them would not allow us to adopt two unrelated children, a few of them lied to me and told me that "Russia doesnt allow that". I figured if they were lying to me already I could toss their information now.
So my "short list" went from about 10 to 5. Then I wanted to know how we were paying for everything. Adopting two is a bit pricier, and I did not want to be one of those couples with 10 thousand dollars strapped to varies parts of my body as I traveled, in fear of being mugged. I found agencies where the majority of the monies being paid were written in money orders here in the US. We only traveled with a small amount each trip. Much more to my level of comfort. This narrowed my search again.
So in the end I had 3 agencies. The choice I ultimately made was not so much price (as I thought it would be) but experience. I figured that with 2 children the chances of having a problem were doubled and I wanted someone with lots of experience. I chose the agency that did more adoptions than the others on my list and worked in more regions. We figured anything that came up for us would have likely come up for others before us so they would know what to do.
By the way, there was a big problem between trip 1 and 2 with our daughter's paperwork. It turned out our facilitator had to drive 2+ hours to the small fishing village she was from and have additional paperwork signed off on by the mother. Things could have gone south here, but our facilitator took care of everything and we never knew about it until after our court date. It really went down to the wire on this and we were never the wiser and there was no additional stress! So, in my book, experience counts!
Christina