anyone have experiance with lifetime adoptions in california

Hi, Just saw your question. We had the same question. The adoption agency we are working with in our home town for a domestic adoption said to be leary of facilitator-type adoption agencies on the web. They told us that not all agencies like those do things that would complete an adoption legally meeting your own state's reguirements. Now take that from the source, they may have wanted to deter us from using someone else. But in any case, it is a good question to ask if you would contact Lifetime. We are in KY. I'm curious, if you contact them, update me how they answer that question.Good luck!

I know that facilitators are illegal in our state. You can save yourself some big $$$ by doing the same thing that a facilitator does. Find your own Birthmom-we did in just 3mos. And now she is due in a few weeks with a caucasion infant. Facilatators take your money and then offer you usually 3 names and phone numbers of pregnant girls. You are then on your own. You hire your own attorney as well as an attorney for Birthmom and you do it all yourself.We did our own facilatating and it cost us about $500.00 (postage, copies of picutures and photocopies).Again check in your state to see if facilitation is legal where you live. So many states have banned them due to faudulent acts. People due get babies from them but it is rare and expensive. And since you are looking for a bi-raical infant an agency/attorney should have NO problem finding a birthmom for you. One of our agencies has called us about 9 different newborn bi-racial situation in just over a year. We declined since there were a number of other couples in the agency waiting in line for a bi-racial newborn and we wanted to wait for a caucasion newborn. So please look into this carefully you can't get your money back from a facilitator even if the placement falls through.Good luck,Moe

Moe you mentioned that one of the agencies you had dealt with offered you 9 different situations with bi racial infants, can you tell me the name..thanks

Originally Posted By kimHi. We got our daughter through lifetime adoptions about three years ago. They are the best to work with. Just be prepared because they place fast. Also right now they have so many children to place of African American decent that I believe it is only $3500. They have four sets of twins not matched at the moment. I was very happy they found our bmom and verified all info. They offered her counseling and talked to me about how things were going, on about a daily basis. They have one of the highest success rates for placement that I could find in my searching. Mardi is just wonderful she started the agency to make it easier for adoptive parents. She has adopted twice herself. They handle everything so well that we were able to have a paralegal do the final court process for $600. They will even refer you to someone if you would like. No worries with lifetime adoptions. Good Luck. Kim H.

it is through our denomination and only accepts couples who pass rigid theological testing and have a good standing membership in one of their churches. If anyone here was a member of that church they would know of this ministry and the maternity homes they have through out the country. They are very strick since most of the Birthmoms come from these churches they want to make sure that the child will be raised in that same denomination.I have had people tell me this is discrimination but it is not considered that since they are a church ministry and accept no outside funding.Our other agency that did our homestudy is United Methodist Children's Home they will accept any couples that can pass the homestudy. They must be open to all denominations since they accept state and federal funding.Hope this helps.Moe

Originally Posted By Rebecca O'BannonIf you are talking about the Lifetime Adoptions in Tustin, CA., our close friends adopted a little 18 mo. old boy from Russia and were very happy with the agency.

Originally Posted By GerriHello. I read what you said about Facilitators and feel that you may have been mis-informed. My husband and I have done a lot of research about facilitators and would like to shed light on some of the things you said:You stated: "Facilitators take your money and then offer you usually 3 names and phone numbers of pregnant girls. You are then on your own." You also said, "People do get babies from them but it is rare..." "...you can't get money back from a facilitator even if the placement falls through."In our research on facilitators, we learned that the facilitators that we interviewed (and this is where you need to do your homework) worked with you until you have a successful adoption. Even after a baby is born if you choose to back out, they still search for other birthmothers for you because their obligation to you is a successful completion to a match. In addition, you are not "on your own," as you stated. The facilitator will send prospective birth mothers a bio, a resume, or a Dear Birthmother letter for her to review. Should she like your information, the facilitator will call you, describe the birth mother and then ask if you are interested in going further, such as in speaking or meeting with the mother. We've had great success with ours after just two months we were matched with a birthmother in her 8th month. From start to finish from when we first contacted the facilitator until the have a baby in our arms will be about 3 1/2 months.So, basically, facilitators can be very adventageous as long as you do your homework and find a reputable one. I'm glad that finding your own birthmother and working with an agency was successful for you. I just wanted to share my research on facilitators with everyone. Gerri

Gerry,I noticed your post on adoption and wanted to solicit some advice. I too feel that there are good and bad facilitators, just like agencies. I'd liek to know what your research turned up and what agencies and facilitators you found that were great. Which one did you use? I am very close to picking one or two but feel really overwhelmed with the assortment. Obviously, I want to pick the one with the most BM and highest success rates but this seems impossible to tell.Debokane@erols.com

Everything about this facilitator screams fishy.If you are considering Lifetime Adoption I highly suggest doing your homework.Keep in mind, this is a business that generates income. Do not make an emotional decision, please be very thoughtful when considering your adoption route. I applied to their free application, listened to 5 hours of their webinars, scoured the web for reviews and did a lot of my own research. I can tell you that in my research I was honest with myself on what I was noticing and what ultimately happened was that there are MANY red flags.- Suggested material they encourage you to learn from are biased. Webinars are internally based because it is from the employees with no outside resources. The book advertised on their website written by the owner is sold by a book company which is under a different name. However, after going with my gut instinct to not go any further with Lifetime, I cancelled my order of the book and called both the different phone numbers listed on the invoice. Both numbers lead me to Lifetime Adoption except one of the phone numbers was answered as Lifetime and the other phone number was answered as the book company name, both answered by the exact same person. It gave me the chills it was so creepy!! The webinars are very sales-like in my opinion, "it's never too soon to apply" and the constant idolizing of the owner of the business left me feeling like this is not a credible company. Some of the material I agreed with, however, I could read between the lines that much of what they preach is based on what they know makes them money. They claim that it is based on what they know works for a quick and successful match, but based on all the surrounding factors I have my own opinions.- After doing additional research on the differences of facilitators and agencies I learned that facilitators are illegal in some states. Why are they illegal if there wasn't something that they were known for that caused them to become illegal to begin with? Also, the webinar that went over what type of company they were, was actually eye-opening to me. What was stated was that if your state does not permit a facilitator that Lifetime Adoption will provide someone within their company who can legally continue the process in that state and not to worry. So...wait? They are a facilitator masquerading as an agency in some states??? Hmm. RED FLAG! While I am sure they have to do things the legal route in those states, I just find it incredibly odd that they try to play as both but act as a facilitator everywhere else. If using a facilitator is illegal in those states then it is not right to operate by using a backdoor or loophole in those same states.- In learning about facilitators I found that generally they are small businesses with few employees not regulated by the state. Essentially they can operate however they want. It seemed to be confirmation when the same people doing the webinars were the same people answering the phones and my emails.- My biggest concern were reviews across the internet where adoptive moms were victimized when they did absolutely EVERYTHING they could do the right way and yet waited years, spending thousands waiting and when they asked Lifetime why it was taking so long they were told they needed to be more faithful and pray harder/more diligently. Did they hear the mother's prayers? Do they know her heart? As a woman of faith, I completely understand the meaning of waiting patiently. But what I do not agree with is using that as an excuse to hide behind why they cannot provide a baby in so many years when people are shelling out more money than they honestly should have because they trusted the company. I have to believe these complaints because it came from more than one person online when I dug deeper. If this business is not in it just for the money, then they should restructure. If the finances spent that year did not produce a baby, allow it to cycle over to the next year or for a complete or partial refund when things don't work out. I guarantee you adoptive parents do not want to wait. Why make them feel worse by keeping their money?! There needs to be accountability. Allow the adoptive parents to see that a number of birth moms have received their info or find a way to be more transparent if anything else. - This is an era that bases opinions on reviews so why is the review section on Facebook hidden unless there is a reason?? Reputable companies allow reviews for all to see. Reviews in other locations have been reported to have been deleted. Interesting, yet another red flag.These were just a few among many other issues I took with this company. I do believe there are success stories that come about this business but in the grand scheme of things I backed out in order to protect my own family. I do not have thousands of dollars to potentially throw down the drain and I'd rather save my family the heartache. We plan to go with an agency.