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In regard to A Child's Dream... RUN!!!!!! Here are a few reasons why:
** The birthmom of our precious son started working with A Child's Dream (In Poulsbo.) She was extremely displeased with them, said she felt trapped and that they didn't listen to anything she said re: the type of family she was looking for. She said the people with whom she had contact were extremely unprofessional, profane and treated her badly.
** Our case worker knows a birthmom who changed her mind about working with A Childs Dream and the agency actually tried SUING HER!
** When our son was born, the nurses at the hospital were so worried that we were working with A CHild's Dream, stating that they had experienced "horror stories" with them.
** We had contact with them, and they told us that an adoption would be "Very Expensive" ... their whole stress seemed to be on money. Furthermore, we became convinced that their approach crossed the fine line from supporting a birthmom to bribing here and practically buying the child. We feel that they were illegal.
Please... make another choice. We ended up doing a private adoption, but there are many good agancies out there.
I would also highly recommend AGAINST using A Child's Dream. We did not originally choose to use them, but we got a call from our attorney telling us that she knew of a birth mother that was having trouble finding adoptive parents. We had to go through A Child's Dream, but we jumped at the chance. The happy ending is that we have a beautiful baby girl who is turning 1 next month!
A Child's Dream, however, was anything but a dream to work with. They treated the birth mother and us with complete disrespect and indifference. As mentioned before, our birth mother felt trapped and used. She threatened to cancel the adoption. So, how did A Child's Dream social worker handle this? She gave up! She told us that she had had enough, and that we were on our own!
After we got our baby girl home, we got a phone call from one of A Child's Dream's attorneys. She was actually screaming at us on our answering machine (not very professional) and telling us that we had committed a felony by taking the baby out of state before the paperwork was done. That's just what we needed to hear after we thought the high-stress part was over! Of course, the paperwork was done...A Child's Dream had just "misplaced" it!
A Child's Dream only concern is money. When we sent them the check to cover the adoption costs, we call them and specifically asked them if there was anything else they needed. They said "no". After we got home with our daughter, they called us several times asking us "where was this paperwork" and "why haven't you done this yet"? Because you said we didn't need to do anything else! A couple of times, our attorney was waiting for information from A Child's Dream...and waiting...and waiting...and waiting. When we called them to ask what was taking so long, they told us that they were waiting for something from us. Why didn't they call and tell us that?! They were so slow, that our daughter's adoption was not finalized until she was almost 8 months old. Ridiculous.
This was going to be just a quick post encouraging people NOT to use A Child's Dream, but it looks like my emotions have gotten the better of me. Hopefully, this will warn other people about the indifferent, unsupportive, and unprofessional money-making machine that is A Child's Dream.
I hope this is helpful. My husband and I used A CHild's Dream to adopt our daughter. They were awful. THey didn't care about us, the aby, or the birthmom. WE almost lost the baby at one point because of mistakes they made. They lied to the birthmom, which is what led to her to almost changing her mind. I expect an agency to at the very least care about the baby and what happens to her. They took so long to get our paperwork to our attorney that the adoption wasn't final until our daughter was almost 8 months old. I felt that they didn't offer any support to us. If you are already going to use them, I hope you have a good experience. PLease feel free to email me with any questions sshears@hotmail.com...Good luck!
Sarah
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mimosasprings
I have current and ongoing experience with this agency. If anyone wants a reference, please PM me.
Just to follow up.. We did finally survive our dealings with them and have our wonderful daughter, but I can't imagine a worse agency. They were rude, disorganized, confusing, incompetent, horrible, and possibly (probably in our opinion) corrupt. I should note that there are A Child's Dream's in different locations and maybe some of them are OK. We dealt with the one in Poulsbo, WA and Anamarie Katzin in particular. Someone should sue them and get them out of business, but we're all too busy with the joys of parenthood to do it. STAY AWAY FROM THEM!
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I am APPALLED at some of these responses.
I am a birth mother that went through this agency 7 years ago and A Child's Dream is WONDERFUL. If I could spend the rest of my life being a free advocate for this agency, I would. They offered me tremendous help. They became like my second family. I still keep in contact with them to this day. I only know from experience that the adoptive couples that have huge problems are usually in this to "buy" their baby and that is rediculous. A baby is not a little toy to be carried around in it's little carrier for you to enjoy. The first couple I had chosen was there for the birth of the baby I carried and they had the nerve to come back to me after the birth, to my room, and tell me they had second thoughts because the baby looked mixed. "It was", and i quote them, "like asking for steak and getting hamburger"!!!! Yes, they really did say that to me! A couple, blessed to be chosen to adopt, wanted to pick out the perfect baby?? Aren't they all perfect and deserving? A Child's Dream was wonderful in protecting me from these preditors and I hope that none of you out there posting here are people like them. There are definately some INSANE people out there trying to adopt. It's about the CHILD. Not about a *****y attorney or someone getting a little behind in their paper work. Why don't you consider that before you go and bash this agency.
May I remind any person out there looking to adopt to remember that there are always two sides to these stories. I can definately tell you.... And it looks like these ones here have a little secret they may be hiding as well, to save face for themselves.
~Sarah
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