Question: Would you do a privatized adoption again? And what are the pro's and con's?

Question from Formspring: Would you ever do a private adoption again? What were the pro's and con's that you experienced?


Answer:

With a private adoption, we do still have to wait the required 6 months before we can finalize, just like any other adoption in Utah. We also still had to do a post placement visit and hired our agency to do that. (Although normally you would have to do 3 post placement visits, we only had to do one)

One of the pro's for us, the cost. I know that sounds awful, but let me explain, The attorney we found (he was actually recommended to us by two different people, one who is a birthmom) is very honest and doesn't overcharge. He charges us based on our case, which he does with all adoptions, instead of treating every adoption the same, and charging the same (I talked to a few attorney's who charged the same no matter what). Let me stress that in most cases, a private adoption normally costs more, and sometimes considerably more. Ours was less because when we went to our attorney, Kristina (Emily's birthmom) had already chosen us. All our attorney needed to do was the court stuff. Our adoption being a family member adoption also weighed into the cost. I know others who had done a private adoption, and they spent thousands more then we did. A family adoption takes considerably less paperwork then a regular private adoption. We also had more control over how things went. Rather then having someone tell us how things would go, we were able to, with Kristina, make a plan together of how things would go at the hospital and after (that was actually a pro, and a con). Of course nothing worked out how we planned, but it worked out all the same.

One of the cons about not having an agency, in an agency facilitated adoption, the agency works out placement and the details of that and the relinquishment and consent. We didn't have that. Our attorney did a good job with the relinquishment and consent (which we had to so a week later at the courthouse) but we were on our own when it came to placement (in most situtations he would have worked that out too, but because ours was a family member adoption, we were on our own). My main reason for wanting to do an agency adoption was our child's birthmom being able to seek counseling should she wish from the agency. Because we did a private adoption, that was not avaliable as part of our adoption.

There are pro's and con's to all types of adoptions, whether a family member adoption, a private adoption, foster adoption, agency adoptions, etc. Really it's just what's best for your family. We prayed long and hard about our adoption. We felt that it was right for us. Because Emily's birthmom is a family member, we had no choice but to do a private adoption. But it has been good for us.

As to whether we would do a private adoption again? We would again pray long and hard about it before saying yes to any potential adoption, whether it ended up being a family member adoption, private adoption, agency adoption. etc.

If you have questions about our adoption, or family member & private adoptions in general, you can either leave a comment here, email me, or ask on formspring.

Don't forget about the giveaway and special from Envision Image! A compelet blog redesign for a hoping to adopt family, and a photo session special for hoping to adopt families, adoptive families and birthparents! For details see yesterday's post.