So once you decide that you have found one or more ethical agencies to choose from (and there are many out there), you must then check the agency for “fit”.

Even the best agency is not going to be right for every family. Each agency has their own rules, regulations and practices that they have developed, that they believe are in the best interest of adoption. These vary greatly from agency to agency.

You want to know before you sign on with an agency and have started sending them money, that they will be able to help you adopt the right child for your family.

Here is an example. I know a family that wanted to adopt a baby. They very much want a baby girl. They chose a very reputable agency and a program that they know has boys and girls available for adoption. After they sent in a good amount of money and most of the paperwork, they discovered that the agency did not allow first time parents to choose the gender of their child. So what where their choices? They could accept the fact that they may get a girl or a boy and move on, or cut their losses and start over with a new agency that would allow them to choose gender. Neither one is the experience they had hoped for, and the situation could have been avoided if the family had asked the right questions in the beginning.

I know another family that started the adoption process with another great agency. They sent in their money and did their dossier, only to find out that the agency would not let them adopt the age of child that they truly wanted. This family had a very young child and several much older children and wanted to adopt a child to fill in “the gap”, but they discovered after the fact that the agency they chose did not permit families to adopt out of birth order. So what were their choices? They could stick with the agency and adopt a child younger than their youngest, which wasn’t really what they wanted, or cut their losses and start over with a new agency. Again, not a good situation.

Most adoptive families do not have the financial resources to just walk away and leave a few thousand dollars, so they find themselves “stuck” with an agency that isn’t right for them.

So how can this be avoided?

Continued…