Foster/Adoption/ Home Study Advice

I was wondering if anyone out there has a recommendation for a private agency for a home study. My husband and I have been trying to adopt through the foster system in Georgia, and it has been a terrible experience. It's a bit of a long story, but the gist of it is they told us we needed to get a licensed counselor's recommendation before our home study would be sent to the board. While we were doing that, they closed our home study without telling us and we don't know why. It is now on some supervisor's desk waiting for approval to be reopened, which may or may not happen. The most frustrating part of this is we had two interviews and only needed one more...we were probably just a couple months away from a complete home study. Grrrrrr! While I hate the thought of having to pay for it when we were so close to getting it done for free, the time may have come. We are currently evaluating our options now. We feel one of the biggest difficulties we've faced is we have no advocate. DFCS doesn't want to deal with us because we are adoption, not foster. And it shows in every interaction with our case worker. My main question is does anyone have any recommendations for a home study agency? But I have other questions as well. Has anyone tried to adopt through the state? How did it go for you? We are also considering switching to foster-to-adopt. Anyone done that? What was your experience like? Any idea on the chances of TPR and adoption? For information's sake, we are looking at school-age preferably. We haven't focused so much on age but rather the "right fit." I am just so frustrated right now. I waver between apathy and an intense need to DO something, so I'm just trying to wade through it all now. The really fun part is my husband is military and leaves for various training a on Sunday and will be mostly gone until November. So we are really stuck now and just plan to use this time to do some thinking and figure things out.