How I found my agency....

I had another couple who is adopting a baby girl from Guatemala over to chat last week. Julie and I work out at the same gym and I heard her talking about starting the adoption process last August or September. She said she was adopting from Guatemala and had just started the process with a local agency. She had been referred to this agency by another family who had adopted and was pleased with the agency. At this point I had decided that I would start my journey the following Spring after getting my current debt paid off. I was in the process of researching agencies and hadn't yet found a local one that I felt I could work with. This agency wasn't on my list and I hadn't seen them in the Yellow pages. She gave me the name and I found them on the internet. I requested an information packet from them. I was impressed. Shortly thereafter I received an invitation from them to come and learn more about their new China/Korea programs. I called and talked to the social worker and she discussed the pros and cons of singles adopting from China. Singles can't adopt from Korea. I then also talked to her about their Guatemala program. I decided to go to the meeting just to get a feel for the agency. My good friend Brenda went with me. It ended up being a somewhat rainy night and we were the only ones that came. The social worker and an intern gave us the presentation about China & Korea and then we pretty much talked the rest of the evening about the Guatemala program. I was very impressed and knew that I had found the agency that I wanted to handle my adoption process.

That was last October and I told them that I would probably start the process in April. In the mean time, my friend Julie was starting the process. It has been nice to see the process happen ahead of me to help me know more about what to expect. Well, I finally started my application process in March (one month sooner than I planned after receiving a generous bonus from work that allowed me to pay off my debt). My homestudy was completed in April , my USCIS paperwork was submitted the middle of May and approved on June 30. I received the referral of the most beautiful girl in the world on July 6 and now we are at the beginning of the Guatemala process.

I love my agency. My social worker turned out to be the intern that was at my initial agency meeting. She took over for the other Social Worker who left after she had a baby of her own. My SW is very detail oriented and did a great job of helping me gather all of my documents. Then she took care of all the certification and authentification process which after reading about other's journeys is time consuming and nerve racking. It is just one of the nice services that this agency provides. She has kept me informed every step of the way and when I have emailed her, I usually have an answer back in less than 24 hours (often within a couple hours). This local agency (ABC Adoption) partners with another agency in South Carolina (Adoption Partners www.adoption-partners.net). Adoption Partners actually has all the contacts in Guatemala and is the agency that handles all of the in-country details. They have a pretty good reputation so I feel very blessed to have found them.

Well, that isn't what I had planned to write about so sorry for boring you and rambling. It just seems that choosing the agency that you will work with in this important process can either make or break your adoption experience. I have heard a lot of horror stories about the bad agencies.

Enough rambling. I will write another post about what I initially started to write about.

Susan