Step 3: Applying to Agencies

We’re applying to 6 agencies, four by our own choosing and two we get by default through our consultant. Hopefully applying with several agencies will shorten our wait time from the 2-5 year average to a iittle over 1 year. We’ve fully applied and been accepted to one. We have a little bit of paperwork, an interview and a couple of application fees to pay but we’re most of the way done! Yay!

If you see our “Let’s talk finances” posts you may wonder why on earth agency fees cost so much. There are many, many reasons for this. First, they have to advertise so birth families find them in the first place. Agencies also have costs associated with most organizations such as building overhead, employee salaries & benefits, licensure/accreditation to maintain. Most importantly, they have to educate, support, counsel, and care for birth families walking through this process.

Our agencies are very different from each other. They vary in size, number of birth families and adoptive families they work with, cost and function. We’d love to get matched through our cheapest agency, but they work with 8-10 mom’s placing for adoption and have 32 families waiting. Five agencies notify you about a birth mom’s case and ask if you want to present to her. We’re most excited for our agency that will match us with a mom without telling us, saving us some of the emotional roller coaster of presenting and then being turned down repeatedly.

So far with each of our agencies, we’re encouraged by the team members we’ve interacted with! It’s so exciting to be this deep into the process!