Hi everyone,

The Family Building Project, an adoption consulting group will be in Bethesda for a free domestic adoption workshop on June 6th. It's a great way to hear stories from other parents, birth moms, adoptees, and adoptive parents. We will also have a few attorneys and home study providers there to share their perspectives.

Open to anyone interested in the process!

The Family Building Project has helped build 700+ families through adoption & surrogacy for 20+ years through marketing, coaching, education and support every step of the way.

Follow the link to sign up: http://familybuildingproject.com/bethesda-workshop-2015/

8 months the first time, five years ago. 14 months this second time, just brought baby home this month. First time was a local adoption, second time we went out of state.

3 months to complete homestudy (because I was slow)

2 months from completion to taking our son home

we had the best adoption consultant, Gloria Hawk at Adoption Advice and Guidance. Same results with her for two of my friends as well.

Anonymous wrote:i know this is declasse but how much did they cost? i adopted internationally and want to adopt again and want to compare costs.

Domestic will be anywhere from $20,000-$80,000+. Its probably the same cost as international now. Everyone has their hand out and if you have a failed adoption, generally you lose a huge chunk of money. My guess is we easily spent $60,000, but our actual adoption was probably less than $15,000 - if we had a competent attorney it would have been much less as the first one mucked things up big time).

i know this is declasse but how much did they cost? i adopted internationally and want to adopt again and want to compare costs.

Which agency gave you the best experience ? Which ones should people be avoiding? I'm a 29 year old single female and would like to start the process in the next year or so.

7 months from application to completed homestudy and profile for agency, 4.5 months from when our profile went 'live'at the agency and placement of our DD in our home. So about a year from start to placement.

The first was flukey - got a call before home study was quite done, spent week finishing that, baby born at end of week. So, 7 days.

Second was more typical - about 3-4 months

Adoption Choices Of Texas (agency had the book for 1 month!) 6 months TOTAL once the book was being circulated, though. I am single & in my 40's, too----I got SUPER lucky!

Good Luck =)

Private adoption (word of mouth) via Florida adoption attorney, one month from start to finish. Had to rush to get home study done. It was an awesome, smooth ride. AA parents, AA newborn. Adopted at birth.

Anonymous wrote:about 4 months but we were really fortunate.

Actually, only know two people who have adopted and in both cases it was short like this. And in BOTH cases they were contacted randomly about kid#2 when their first was less than 2. One family went to Oklahoma both times and the other family went to FL.

You never know what is going to catch a birthmother's eye. Make your book, be yourselves, don't lie. That's the best advice we ever got.

I never thought we'd get picked so quickly. We're older, no pets, we both work, I didn't think our lives were so exciting....in the end, the birthmom said she picked us because we looked like nice people, were Christian and looked like her and the birthfather -- dark hair, dark eyes, suntanned (even though she had no idea what the kid would come out looking like....)

For those of you with shorter time frames, what agency did you use? And any tips on how / why you got picked so quickly? When I see the books of couples I don't know how you ever get picked!

4 months from first contact with BM to birth of my son. However this was a private adoption and I know I was extremely fortunate.

from putting in application to agency to bringing home baby, 9 months, including a failed match.

BUT the homestudy application and process probably took another 1.5 years before that.