Whose Out there?

Do some people hire a facilitator in addition to an agency? Do most agencies require you to sign a contract that you will only work with them? I am a little confused. We are hoping to adopt a child of a different race than our own and Nevada is just not a big adoption state so I do not want to limited to the private adoption agency I was planning to use. Jen

hi, some agencies do lots of outreach to find bparents. for others (like mine) just sit back and wait to be notified of certain possibilities (they hear from other social workers, bmoms come into the agency directly, etc). we hired a facilitator to do outreach. Not all facilitators are above board: there are few standards for this, and in fact some states won't let you use one. we selected a nonprofit with an excellent reputation, one that just places children of color and makes a serious effort to do same race placements. They are known nationwide, so if a bmom of color comes into an agency that doesn't work with folks of color (there are these, saying they have no demand for these children), they can call someone like our facilitator. our agency quoted us a time frame of 6-12 months, the facilitator said 4-6 (and more like 4). They also had a philosophy that was similar to ours, advocating open adoptions without agency interference. And since they were notforprofit, they had a sliding fee scale so that lower income folks could use their services. btw, we mentioned to our agency that we'd hired a facilitator and would they work with them-it was fine. In fact, the facilitator recommended them as someone they'd worked with before. LisaCA *

I guess I may as well give my agency a try. I am hearing pretty amazing things about the short time frame of the wait for any race of child from Nevada. If nothing has happened after a few months I can always hire a facilitator. THanks for the explanation. Jen

Hi Jen, I'm a single CC woman and I hope to be adopting my AA fost/adopt son in the very near future. He is almost seven months old and I took him home from the hospital when he was just two weeks old! After I was certified through the state of NJ, I only waited four days for the call. He's a totally healthy bundle of joy! I could not be happier! Good luck to you!

Not from NV but wanted to add that we went w/ a facilitator and we were matched in 7 weeks of signing on and now we're expecing an AA daughter in less then 3 weeks. Ours is across state (many state) lines.

I wish I had known about the facilitator sooner. We are an AA couple waiting to adopt an AA infant- waiting since June 04. Our agency will not release our homestudy to networkers so we'll have to stay with this agency since we've invested quite a bit already. I know this won't be our only adoption. Next time we'll know more. Sounds like a good facilitator can really improve the process.

Hubby & I are CC with a bio son & daughter. We adopted 3 children, SO FAR! :) Our 1st is a Biracial daughter, then an AA daughter & then an AA son. We used a Referral service & an attorney. Our 1st & 3rd were matched with the referral service & our 2nd was with the attorney. With our first adoption we matched before our paperwork was finished. We had to rush it along but our daughter was nice & waited 5 weeks. LOL From time of match to her birth was 5 weeks. Not at all the year to 18 months on average they told us it would be! With our 2nd adoption we registered end of June. We got a call about July 3 or 5 or so about a baby due end of July. Actually said NO at first. We had a failed adoption in January of that year. When the call came about this one I panicked & told the attorney NO! LOL The next day we left for vacation. We were gone 5 days. The day after we returned the attorney called & AGAIN asked us if we would consider the situation. We agreed to meet with the BMom that Saturday & take it from there. Well, Thursday evening the atty called us to let us know our baby was coming any MINUTE! We talked to BMoms Father for a couple hours on the phone. Still on Saturday we went to meet them & on Monday brought our daughter home. With our last adoption, knowing how fast it goes for us, we registered end of July BUT told them not to put us in for any situations unless PBMom was due end of September. We had a big vacation coming & I wanted to be all set before we left, but didn't want our vacation disrurpted. Planned this trip for a LONG time! :) While on vacation on August 8th the service called to ask if we wanted to be shown for a baby due end of September. We said yes & on August 25 we were chosen. On September 14th our son was born. All of our adoptions are totally open ones. We have frequent phone calls, I send pictures every couple of months or when I get too many at one time. We have visits any where from once a year to 4-5 times a year. And no sorry, we don't live in Nevada either. But we've been to Las Vegas!! LOL We are in Wisconsin. GOOD LUCK!!!! Deb

We are CC as well as our two bio daughters. We are adopting an AA or biracial baby of either gender. Our agency in TX told us that the average wait is under 6 mo. but to be ready ASAP because it can happen fast. Of course we have to finish the homestudy first.

traceyk....... was wondering if the vegan after your ages indicated that you all were vegetarian.....and were your children vegan since birth... my dh and i are vegan our son is vegetarian, the dairy we feed is of course organic..... but was curious on how your kids did......

No dairy at all. We are all vegan. For health and animal rights reasons. Milk is made for calves, not children :D We don't even take in sugar because our veganism goes deep into how items are processed too (sugar is bleached with animal bones)

that is awsome..... and inspirational......and may make my husband and i re think our organic milk for our son... i realize where milk comes from as i used to do farm calls at dairys..... sad places... we have been vegetarian for over 25 years (our son only 2 but a great start for a long life) and as i said before have just recently introduced dairy for our son......we have a good size organic garden that yeilds enough for us to can for use during the winter. we have livestock.... for pets and wool... which is harvested quite humanely...as i am a spinner and a weaver. most critters were rescued. we also are getting bact to being active in a local food coop.... great to know there are more like minded out there... would love to hear more.

Hi Hubby and I are both CC and have been open to race and gender with each of our three adoption, we are cc/his, cc/ba and full black American. All were domestic newborns and we used agencies with could counseling and supportive services for all members of the triad. Our wait with DS#1 was exactly 3 months, DD 2 months and DD 3 2 months for a match and then 4 months until placement. All of our adoptions have varying amounts of openess mostly determined by distance and time. We have the most openess with our son who is 6 and the relationship has simply grown over time to something everyone is cofortable with and includes extended family. distance is a major factor and so we dont' "see" each other but email is available and gift and letters are exchanged several times a year. Kathy

My dh and I are AA and are adopting through the foster care system a sibling pair who are AA. We are from the midwest and we went through an agency that works with all the counties where we live. Our children were 6 months and 17 months old. It took exactly one year from start to placement of our children in Jan 2004. We are hoping to finalize in a few months.

Kathy, I am curious why your daughter took so long to come home? If you don't mind my asking.

Dh and I are both AA. We've just actually started the homestudy process, waiting for SW to call for initial meeting. We have an agency doing the homestudy but expect to start out with a referral service mentioned by several on these boards to actually locate our domestic AA infant.