States & Agencies
Our adoption could look really different depending on the state of birth and agency that brings about our match. We’ve been told using multiple agencies broadens our exposure and shortens anticipated wait time from 2-5 years down to 10-12 months!
Below is a little bit about our states & agencies.
All states have regulations to keep people from buying babies. State adoption laws vary in several ways, the most significant being expenses adoptive families can pay for birth families and how soon after delivery birth parents sign termination of their rights. The adoption laws we follow are dependent on the state the baby is born in not the state we live in.
Four of our agencies are in Florida. American Kidz, Adoption & Family Support Center, Florida Adoption Center, and Adoption By Shepherds Care. Florida is considered an adoption friendly state meaning two things:
1) Birth mom can have many expenses paid by the adoptive family during pregnancy and 6 weeks post delivery.
2) Parental rights are terminated between 48 and 72 hours after delivery.
Lutheran Family Services is a mid-west based agency. They assist with adoptions in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota. These states have more restriction on how much financial support an expectant mom can be given ~2,500 for non-medical expenses. This would undoubtedly result in a cheaper adoption. Lutheran Family Services assists with 10-15 adoptions each year. They have 16 Tier One families that get dibs on presenting to brith situations. We’re considered a Tier 2 family with them, meaning we’re 15th on the wait list to be in the list of Tier 1 families that get to present to birth moms. If any Tier 1 families turn down the opportunity to present we may get to share our profile. It’s more likely we’ll wait a year or more for Tier 1 to get the chance of matching through this agency.
If our baby is born in Iowa, Iowa will allow for adoptive families to have temporary custody at 48hrs post birth but birth families can change their mind 72 hours after adoptive families take custody. This creates a little more anticipation and foreboding and could lead to a larger heart break if baby comes “home” but then gets taken back.
Premier Adoption Agency is in Arizona, Utah and Nevada. They don’t do traditional adoption presentations. Instead their profiles are available for viewing on their website (you can check out ours if you look for our photo on their home page). Birth mom’s will select a first, second, and third choice. They could call us up at any time and let us know a mom chose us if we are interested.
We also will get notified of potential situations through Christian Adoption Consultants. They get sent opportunities from agencies that cannot find an adoptive family that’s a good fit for a specific situation and share it with waiting families to see if they want to present.
We have some agencies we like more than others, but we’re glad to have them all. They each help create opportunity for us to bring home Baby Degnan in the near future.
