Also (I'm the PP) - we did put a lot of energy into the book, we had three "themes" but none of them were about lifestyle (or money), first because we don't have a fancy lifestyle and used most of our savings for the adoption, but also because we wanted to communicate what makes us unique and desirable, including our values and parenting philosophies. That's also how we turned what other people told us would be "negatives" (my husband's cultural heritage has some negative steriotypes in the US) into positives (highlighting exposure to a variety of cultures and experiences).

The best part? Our birthmother picked our book because of the cover -- she liked my smile. She looked over all the books and came back to ours for that reason. And not to be self deprecating, but I am no model and the photo was not airbrushed -- it really was a gut choice for her, maybe I reminded her of someone she liked. So our hard work was probably irrelevant, but doing it made me feel like I had some control.

Domestic adoption: 1 year for paperwork, 8 months from eligibility (approved home study) to baby (biracial Black/white) - no known special needs prior to birth (or since, but I think what you're asking is about prenatal drug exposure/etc.) We had no racial preference. We had one fall through, also biracial (Asian American/white). Overall we did spend about $60k, but that was because the fall-through was at the last minute so we had all the legal, medical bills to pay for that and for the successful adoption. There was NO "speeding" the process, everything was just based on being picked (and then, in the first case, "unpicked"). Best of luck!

It would be helpful if people noted the age, race or health of children. I am assuming that makes a huge difference in speed of process. At one point I was told 3-5 years for healthy white newborn. And close to 75k for a private adoption to "speed" the process. We didn't explore any further.

We also used adoptions together based in MD ( They have an Office in VA as well)
I used to scrapbook so enjoyed doing our book. I don't think I put as much effort into it as the poster above did though.
It turned out we werent picked based on our book. The agency matched us with the birth Mom, not sure why to be honest. The birth Mom then saw our book and liked us. ( we are a femal gay white couple and DD is black) Apparently she liked the fact we travel, nothing extravagent but we do a lot of weekend and day trips.

^^^
No, I have no idea where you came up with that nonsense. Assuming you are not the troll who always posts something negative about adoption on this forum, I will give a real answer... It's impossible NOT to contemplate parenting, etc., when you are going through the home study process with even a halfway decent social worker. Writing the profile also entails thinking about how you want to parent. Adoption makes parenting a very intentional and contemplative process; many of my friends with biological children commented that they did not have to think about the ins and outs of parenting pre-birth to the same degree that we did.

So you spend more time doing the adoption book than contemplating adoption and parenting the new child

Anonymous wrote: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!

I worked with adoptions together, based in Maryland. I put a LOT of time into my profile book; creating it was almost like a part time job. I looked at a lot of samples of professionally done books online (through links found on pinterest, etc.), read articles about creating profile books, and had friends take lots of pictures so we could find great ones for the cover and opening pages (first impressions matter). Our DS's birthmother chose us based on our book, then met us in person just to confirm we matched up with what she saw in the book. I think some other books I saw focused more on how much people had (huge houses, fancy jobs, etc.). We showed pictures of some of the rooms in our house and briefly mentioned our jobs, but we really worked hard to make the book show through words and/or photos who we are, what we like to do, how we think, and what kinds of things we'd like to do as parents.

Once you have a great book, I think there's an element of luck and working with an agency that has a large pool of prospective birthmothers, so your book is shown to someone with whom you 'fit.'

FYI the family building project pasted on my neighborhood families' FB page. They don't seem to have a website, fwiw.