How did your birthmom find you???

Question

Has anyone had any good experiences advertising for a birthmom without the assistance of an Agency? We are looking to adopt a child within the US. We live in IL , a state that allows adoptive families to advertise on their own. Once a birthmom finds us, it is our intention to allow an Agency to get involved.

I am aware of all the adoption scammers out there and the risk involved in doing it this way, but we would like to try it on our own for about 3 months...

www.adopt-with-love.com

Answer 1

While I do not recommend "advertising" on the internet because of the potential for scams, we did find our birth mother on our own.  We told everyone that we wanted to adopt.  Our neighbor actually knew of a family that was looking to make an adoption plan for a child and put us in touch.  The rest was history.  I would recommend telling everyone you know, telling the members of your church, and just networking as best you can.

I agree that involving an agency once you have a birth family.  We had an agency do an "identified" adoption which is what you were discussing.  It worked wonderfully for us - especially because of some unusual situations we encountered with our adoption and our son's special needs.  I highly recommend involving an agency.  

Good luck to you.

Answer 2

I do not recommend this course.  Using a reliable attorney or agency is VERY important from the very start.  They will prescreen the birth moms for you.  This will GREATLY reduce the amount of emotional strain that you will need to deal with.

The agency/attorney will do the following before you ever hear about the birth mom:

They will advertise in phone books, newspapers, pamphlets, flyers, and even billboards.

They will interview potential birth mothers to determine if they are committed to the adoption plan.  Many birth moms come in and show signs of tentativeness.  These are flagged as "risky" and the birth moms are often offered counseling to determine if this is really what they want to do.  The last thing the attornies (and ultimately, you) want is a birth mom that changes her mind after the first time she holds the baby.  

They contact the birth father to ensure that he is not going to contest the adoption, and that he doesn't plan to exercise his paternal rights.

They also screen you!  Birth moms are hesitant to offer their child up to someone that they find out about through an ad.  They want to go to an agency or attorney to make sure that the process goes smoothly and all legalities are taken care of.

PLEASE think twice about this course of action.  I suspect that it will make the whole experience more difficult than it needs to be.

Answer 3

I am not adopted so it was really easy. Go down the hall and make a left. Simple, eh?

Answer 4

we ended up doing a private adoption, not through a agency. But it was just meant to be for us, no advertising or anything. It was much more inexpensive, the mother and father of the child are no longer here, but we allow the grandparents (who we got our child from) to be in our child's life.

It is a good loving situation, he knows his birth grandparents and has so much love from our family. This is all he knows, and he thinks he is special cause he has so many grandparents...LOL