I am responding to this paragraph written by Adoption Advantage:
"We are always very upfront with clients when they sign up with us and explain that birth mothers do have a right to change their mind about an adoption. Everyone on our staff works very hard to make these placments go through, but sometimes there is just nothing we can do. Any adoption professional will agree. Your last failed placement was particularly heart breaking because you did travel for so long, but that is adoption. You got to talk to this birthmother before she delivered and you felt good about her placing as well-or at least that is what you told our caseworker. The caseworker in this case put in countless hours with this birth mother and even went to her house (in a terribly dangerous part of TN) at night and banged on her door trying to get the birth mother to face her. She also left countless messages on her phone attempting to counsel with her. Molly is one of our finest caseworkers and I feel she did everything possible to make this placement work for you."
So, even though MOTHERS (not "birthmothers") can choose not to place their children for adoption, they agency still works very hard to make a placement go through? This work includes harassing a mother in the middle of the night? Legal, perhaps. Ethical, most certainly not.
Ethically speaking as well, women who haven't given birth aren't "birthmothers." Mothers who haven't relinquished their children are not "birthmothers." They are expectant mothers and mothers, respectively.
We had a bad experience with this agency. The owner has threatened to sue us if we tell our story.
Also, the promises made to the birthmothers are not followed through. We have lots of contact with our sons birthmother and she told us the truth.
I will briefly state my dealings with Adoption Advantage because I promised to do so. I did not contract them after all because I felt they were trying to take advantage of us.
--- When I initially contacted AA I spoke with Karen. Karen was, or is, a heartwarming sounding person, someone you can trust with your life. She sent me a copy of the contract on a Friday and urged me to hurry up and sign it so I can pick-up any BMs that come in over the weekend. But we didn't like the way the contract left us open and unprotected. While contemplating the signing of it, Karen called to tell us about a young mother who was pregnant again but could not parent another child. We were not yet clients as we did not sign the contract but she was calling us to see if we were interested. She said it was an agency match and that the mother was due Sept 1. I was overjoyed with the prospect of having a baby to love so quickly in our searching efforts with them.
That night when we spoke, she said the mother was due on Aug 16, and when I questioned her she said she had gotten her confused with another birth mom that she was also trying to match. I had to ask her about that mom as well, of course, I just couldn't leave it alone and after hearing all about her couldn't decide between both moms and asked if I could adopt both children. After she gets the ok from the director she said she would send me the new contract with the new agency fee asking for all the money upfront for two adoptions minus a discount. I was on cloud nine and called my social worker (independent) to tell her the great news and that she would have to update my homestudy for them.
My social worker was not comfortable with any of it, and questioned about the fact that I was not only being offered a BM so quickly and possibly ahead of their other clients, but two. She wondered, don't they have other clients that they can offer these BM to, why you if you are not their clients yet. None of this had crossed my mind, I was just happy to have been chosen.
I began going back and forth with Karen on the contract trying to decide if they were trying to deceive me or did they really have two Moms’ for us. She kept warning that they have to match their BMs within 24 hrs and kept telling me that she could not continue to make these BMs wait for us any longer, although she did, but the urgency to make a decision quick was always there. My social worker cautioned me that they may be trying to lure me in for the fee and then tell me later that the mothers had changed their minds and keep me on a waiting list until they really do have a situation for us and that it could be years and that I would have no way of proving that they had, in fact done this. So naturally I want to speak to the BMs, I want to know for sure.
Karen can sense my apprehension with all my questions and tells me that she's going to have me talk to Stephanie who deals directly with the BMs and could answer any questions I have. She was really sweet about it and I felt I was talking to my loving Aunt who was going to help me.
Stephanie on the other hand was the opposite of Karen, she was a fast talker and although had a lot to say, actually said very little, she reminded me of a used-car salesman. I realized Stephanie was the closer of this deal and, in fact, was the killer of the deal. She would not let me speak to the BMs and said that no one is really matched until they have signed the contract first and paid the agency fee. When I protested that it was Karen who contacted me with a BM match for me, she said that when they have a BM who has not chosen any of the parents on file, that it is then that they do an agency match.
So, am I being matched or not? Were there really two mothers who did not pick from the current parent profiles and that's why Karen called me? Had they asked all the waiting couples that I have read about on this website and they had all declined? If they did have no one else for these moms, why then would they not work with us to make us feel more secure? Why the objection to produce the proof? Was this a classic case of Bait and Switch? You be the judge.
"I did not appreciate being called about Potential Matches and then being told to "overnight 30k"
That has us a bit on edge as well. We are afraid that their call may be just a lure to get our money and then break the news that birthmother "changed her mind", when in fact there was no real match to us, to begin with. A part of me, refuses to believe that a licensed agency would be so unethical and cruel and put themselves on the line like that. But the other part of me knows that there are a few agencies with questionable practices. I just hope this one is not one of them.
We did check with the Better Business Bureau and they do have two formal complaints against them and were "resolved" because AP's did not pursue. It was particularly alarming for us because they involved issues with the contract. We wouldn't want to start off on the wrong foot already. We want to have a great experience and feel good about the outcome---that we helped a mother who needed to make an adoption plan because of her circumstances, whatever they might be, and that she in turn gave us the gift of parenting a child who we will love and cherish all the days of our lives. We want to be able to share our wonderful experience, not just of the mother, but of the agency as well, who for all intents and purposes, is the medium through which such a blessing could occur. The potential of the agency is paramount not just for the AP's but for the pregnant mother's as well. And we the APs and BMs are extremely vital to them as we become either their greatest advocates for their continued success or their greatest adversaries.
If anyone has anything to share about this agency, please do so, hold nothing back. I promise to do the same. We will post if we did decide to use them and how our experience went and we will also post if we didn't and why we didn't. The need for this website would be counter-productive if we didn't share our stories with each other, whether good or bad. These are the checks and balances.
The agency called us this past year about adopting an infant. High risk placement due to legal abandonment. Told us it was very unusual for them to call people who were not clients of their agency but they did so because they could not place the baby out of state and we were in the state and open to this particular adoption situation.
They wanted all of the money and fees up front and said they would put a rush on this adoption--and would get the baby placed with us within weeks. We told them we were not comfortable paying all the fees up front (which a reputable agency should never ask you to do) but offered to pay up front for the homestudy, background checks--all the fees we would normally have had to pay up front--and said we would be willing to put the rest in an escrow account payable to the agency once parental rights were terminated--so the agency would know we were acting in good faith. The terms of the escrow would be that the money in the account would be returned to us if for some reason the adoption did not go through.
The woman we spoke with said they would check with their director about this and call us back. They never called us. We tried calling the agency but they did not take out call until a couple weeks later. When I asked about the baby, the woman said the birthmother had suddenly changed her mind.
However, by chance we actually met the couple who adopted this baby at our adoption support group (and also saw the baby we had been hoping and praying for ever since this agency called us. She was so beautiful.) Turns out when we weren't agreeable to paying all the money for this adoption up front, the agency then contacted this other couple and offered them a discounted rate for the adoption if they paid everything to them up front. This couple took a chance and did this and thankfully for them it worked out.
The person I talked with stressed that they were a "Christian agency" who would be "praying for me and my husband" regarding this adoption. When in truth they lied to us and were more interested in $$$ and offloading their financial risk on their prospective adoptive parents.
It is sad that some people have not even used this agency and are posting negative things about them. We signed up with them last year in March and welcomed our beautiful baby girl into our family in August. There were a few bumps along the way, but NO agency will be perfect. I was kinda weary about the upfront fees, but if the adoption fell through the adoption fees would go toward our next situation. We had a really close match, but it fell through. Adoption Advantage always returned our phone calls (sometimes it took them a day or two, but if something came up they called us immediately).
Meeting our Birthmom and our hospital experience was EXCELLENT.
They do have some staff issues, as in new people coming in and out, but the main people that we dealt with after our match have been there since we signed up. I know some of our case workers lived a ways off from where our daughter was born, so there was a lot of driving involved also.
If you are considering this agency, don't just email or call them. Go to one of their offices and visit with them. You will not find them sitting around twittling their tumbs. Everytime we went (the first time just to meet everyone and get a tour) everyone is always busy.
Through God, this agency helped up create our family, and we will be signing back up with them again SOON! We are wanting to expand our family even more!
I was actually looking for the Adoption Advantage site to find an email address but found this instead.
My name is Christina. I had put my son up for adoption through this agency Jan. 2004. I got to meet his adoptive parents and I decided to keep my adoption an open adoption. That means that I can still recieve pictures of my son from time to time.
My only complaint about the agency is everytime I call for pictures, I talk to a different person everytime. The new person will tell me that the person I talked to, just a few months ago, quit or something else happened. That gets a little frustrating now because I have been trying to recieve pictures recently and I honestly don't know who to contact this time around.
Everytime I get to know somebody and they tell me that I can trust them and call for them next time... I just get another person or even worse, they don't know what I am talking about.
I have also been trying to contact them to update my information.
I want to offer an apology if you felt I was unsympathetic, rude or judgemental in any way. It is not my intention to come across that way. I think this forum is a great avenue for information and expression and in no way would I want our differences of opinion to be misconstrued. Again, I offer my apologies if I offended you in any way.
gina didnt seem rude or angry to me at all. matter of opinion i guess. why shouldnt both sides be heard? dont we have a right to defend a group of hard working people we grew close to? people who helped us to grow our families? and as far as JUDGING(which one of you did) what it is like to i have children, claiming that you would be "too busy" to post a comment on a website... well, whats that about???? how do you know? its not like our kids spend every single second on our lap crying. i have 5 kids, but i still have time to post in here and respond to others at times. besides, i get an e mail every time someone posts about AA in here, not like im stalking the website lol. although our adoption with AA went well, a prior international adoption DID NOT. we have been through the ringer too, so we feel for both sides, i promise. i will never totally get over what we went through (time, heartache, money)to get him home and 5 years later hes still a RAD kid who threatens to kill me in my sleep. it aint all roses! YOU have a right to state that it went badly, and WE have a right to tell OUR story as well. if you dont want to read it, then dont!
I am sorry that you are so bitter. I was looking through cafemom.com and happened upon this posting and was just wanting to see what it said. I am going through the process again if you did not read it correctly the first time? I have great communication with the agency and always have (for the past 4 years). I have not had any of these things that are mentioned on the website happen to me so I am unsure of their truths. I am so sorry that some of you have had negative dealings with adoption and I hope that your pain gets better with time.
I want to start by saying that I am not contracted with Adoption Advantage, though I have had many phone comversations with many of the staff in considering which agency to go through. I have found them to be very honest and giving of information. I have contacted 9 or 10 Adoptive familiess created with the help of Adoption Advantage. I enjoyed the honesty of these families, stories about failed adoptions, disrupted adoptions, and of finalized adoptions.
Everyone must make decisions based on any information they can find...though I believe talking to families who have worked with Adoption Advantage (not just reading posts) is more helpful.
As far as the mothers deciding to parent at anytime during the process I know that this hurts, My Husband and I have been through it 3 times...two times the children were in our homes and then had to be returned so I know the emotions. Though I believe that by any means possible a child should be with their birthfamily...only if that is not possible then an adoption should occur. I should also share that my Husband and I are foster parents so I am actually living what I believe in, assisting birthfamilies in reunification with their children.
If a child is unable to return home we are open for adoption...We have adopted one child through the foster care system and are looking into a domestic adoption.
If you are looking for a truthful opinion of Adoption Advantage then find families inpacted by them and talk to them or meet them...
don't fall for the venting people do about everything online.
This is long - but worth the read! Try me. If not, post your comments and direct them to my subject line. If you do read it - please read it in its entirety.
I have no reason to pick a side of this debate, so I say this sort of as an outsider since we have not used any agency yet but are thinking about it. Would everyone stop and take a look and listen to what you are saying. Some of you may be forgetting facts that you may have heard from the agency or should have read for yourselves or maybe even in someone else's ignorance have been mistold. Look through the packet yourselves and see for yourself. What do you read? Go by that. Not what someone else says. If that is different than what the agency says then have grief with THEM first. Check out the facts. To the person who wrote "owner threatened us"; you mentioned the birthmother told you the truth. How can you be so sure? I don't know the circumstance but listen to your statement. How do you know you can believe her instead of the agency? Can she not lie? Did you think there might be a motive there? Think about it. Sorry to rain on everybody's negativity and sorry for any true bad problems you all have had, I truly am and I wouldn't want it on anyone. I just think everyone has to be very careful the things you say and make sure they are facts. Don' t just feed off the fuel that each of you are creating. I did that one time and found out the hard way that I was wrong. I was given wrong information and I took it as truth. It was a hard pill to swallow but when that happens you have to use it and learn from it.
There is a risk that is very real and devastating in some cases when dealing with a birth mom who is allowed to change their mind. - Can you blame them when they see that precious baby? But we all go in to it knowing that ( its in the packet). Remember we choose how much we want to support the mom. (its in the packet,too.)We also have to remember that we are dealing with lives. Some of the wordings of ALL comments sounds like this is some kind of market and we have this agency out here shopping for us. This is all sounding like it is being made out to be all they have to do is go out and find these women having babies and get one for us. ( I am fighting for the right wording here. I hope I am getting my point across.) Realize here, are we encouraging people to make the right choices when they can't keep their own child. But we are not to be creating a market where people are having babies on purpose to support the great adoption market or because of the money in it. Isn't that called something? And who might be reading this? Is a birth mom reading this? What does she think? We truly want her to know we will love that child as if it were our own and will fight for it and want what is best for it and that it is truly wanted by any of us. There is a fine line for all involved - including any agency to be ware what is happening here. We have to be careful because when we start using the terms business and recruiting and competitive field - we begin to question the goal here ultimately - to make a better life for a child. To cause them to be given life - period. To give that mom a hope. I understand to a certain extent that we do have to "recruit" these moms as far as letting them know they have the option of adoption instead of abortion but we have to be careful that we are not encouraging pregnancy in the first place to keep the market going. The field should not be "competitive ". It doesn't matter who she goes through as long as she chooses life. Let all who read this heed that. Just be there and give these moms information and let them see this would be the best alternative to keeping their baby themselves. Pray for these moms. Pray God will guide them to make the choice that would most honor Him. I realize too that some of you may not necessarily be part of a Christian home, you just want what each of us want. A child of your own. But we as adoptive parents have the chance to change a life and show them the grace of God. What a beautiful example of grace adoption is. Let's make sure we have the right motives for (side 1) being in the adoption "business" and (side 2) for wanting to adopt. To give the grace we have been given.
I understand everyone wants to warn people if they feel there is a danger. But we need to have the facts right. If that is you, good. If it is not, then you know who you are. But everyone else doesn't. Like I said, I am neutral as far as which side I fall on - but maybe I can help both sides to do a better job and be a better person. This is just like a fight going on at a church. Who are you helping here? What good is going to come of it? It just keeps out those who need to be there. ( I have learned that the hard way, too;by being in a church that didn't have all the facts.) We are going to keep out those who would make excellent adoptive parents because they don't want to have to go through all this. And we may keep out the very ones we are called to help - these precious moms and babies.
God bless our feeble efforts to do Your will! God bless us with a child if it is Your will! Amen.
I have not dealt with them yet except to get a packet and speak by phone. I do know someone who has gone throught AA twice and has not mentioned anything negative to me. I know someone else who has a contract with them but are now expecting their own 2nd child and have not mentioned anything negative except maybe not updated as often as were promised but have moved up on the list to a spot in good enough position to hopefully be placed soon. Alot of it depends on who the Bmom chooses is the way I understand it, too. I am considering them. When you help a b'mom you are taking a risk but it is up to you how much support you want to give them the way I understand it. And another factor is how specific you want to be on what you will accept. Gender, race, disability, etc. Obviously the more open you are to any of these the quicker you may be placed. This is the kinds of things I have been told.
We have been signed with Ad. Advantage for a year and have had 3 failed adoptions. The first one, the birthmother changed her mind immediately after giving birth, after we had paid her bills for a month and a half. The 2nd one, the couple changed their mind before giving birth so there was just disappointment. The third and final, we got in our car, traveled 11 hours to bond with mom and baby at the hospital and the next day she took off without a word to anyone. And 4 days later, I haven't heard anything from anyone at the agency. They are unethical, unprofessional and I would look elsewhere before losing any time, money or experiencing the heartbreak we have!
We investigated using this agency, and even applied to them. They require ALL funds UP FRONT!!! And, if a situation falls through, you are not refunded the money.
I have no idea how they treat birth families, but I did not get a good feeling about it. I did not appreciate being called about Potential Matches and then being told to "overnight 30k if you are interested."
We Are Not Sure, What to do this seems like a very Crazy Process. There seems to be some good reviews and some bad ones. We just want to make sure we are making the right decision. PLEASE HELP
" have adopted AND birtch children-3 of each. i love them all the same and that is the honest truth. DONT TELL ME HOW I FEEL! you only have a birth child, you admit you do not have an adopted child so how do you KNOW?????????????? you are being very judgemental and i highly doubt it is due to the fact that you are adopted. you are negative, rude and downright nasty BY CHOICE."
I am not rude-you are-I am not negative, I speak only of a totally negative system-I am not nasty, YOU are-AND YOU ARE A TERRIBLE ADOPTIVE MOTHER TO TALK TO ANY ADOPTEE LIKE YOU TALK TO ME. UP YOURS!!!!!!! Now please go play in the middle of the road......
"Our adoption system is a mess. Judging from the comments of unethical agency behavior on this board just in the last week proves that. I am so sorry to hear you were placed with an abusive parent. That was criminal! We have two children by birth and one through adoption. I think bonding has a lot to do with personalities more than anything else. It may surprise some that the child I have the closest relationship to is the one we adopted and she was an older infant at the time of adoption. I love all of my children, but she and I definitely connect the most. She has an open adoption and I agree with you that she and her first mom have a special bond, but it doesn't prevent her from bonding with me or anyone else.
To the poster above, you deserved a better mom".
You know what, this brings up and issue NEVER discussed and that is do in part to the corrupt adoption industries BS PR campaign-(ie: we want money, money, money, money, money and we don't care who we hurt to get rich)there is no guarntee that any baby, who becomes a child, teen or an adult is going to genuinely LIKE their adopted mother or father-we do not even HAVE YOUR DNA, we are NOT really part of YOUR family or are we a part of YOU-I meet many people just on the street who I have bad feelings about or just do not instantly like and this totally can happen in adoption too and the problem is too that the adoptive parents only see a little baby, they don't see the long term picture-NO one has a right to expect an adoptee to like their adoptive parents if they don't want too-disliking someone is a chemical reaction too alot of the time and no adoption agency can predict what is going to happen-at least when the child is your own, even though there might be a few differances, the bond is stronger-I will say to the poster I quoted, yes, I did derserve a better mother-I DESERVED MY OWN REAL MOTHER AND I NEVER WANTED A FAKE ONE-there are alot of posers in here of course-social workers, agency employees and adoptive parents who will make up stories to vie for adoption so I take all I read with a grain of salt-but even if one has an adoptive mother who wasn't a child abuser nutcase like mine was/is adoptive parents have to realize THAT CLOSED ADOPTION RECORDS IS CHILD ABUSE-we are not circus animals-you can not expect us to perform the way you want us too-to believe we are your real children, to not want to vomit because an infertiles woman is named as our mother on our ammended BC's(because that says, no it screams, that our real idenities are not important, so therefore WE are not important)-it is perfectly NORMAL and HUMAN for us to want to know who our real parents are and all other information pertaining to us and you must remember too, that that info is OURS and it has nothing to do with you, our bodies have nothing to do with you because you did not make them-so hence, we have a right to know all about the people who made us us, and their DNA-to deny any human being that is satanic and psychotic. I hope the woman I quotedabobe with never interfere with her adopted daughter and her real mother-if you truley love this girl you will not and you will tame your jealoulsy for her sake-this whole situation reminds me of divorcing couples fighting over the child and it is NOT healthy for the child or if that child is now an adult-I do apprecitate you saying I should not of been abused-never heard that from MY adoptive mother......and I never will......
And to Donna, the agency's director, I say this:
We all know who gets the "Advantge" and it ain't us adoptees or our real moms. To all adoption ageny's F U.......!!!!! for what you have done to us, especially in closed adoption. Have fun rotting in hell Donna, you big bag of smelly crap......you deserve it....
And who might be reading this? Is a birth mom reading this? What does she think? We truly want her to know we will love that child as if it were our own"
As an adoptee, an abused adoptee I am going to tell you that that is a lie. First of all, you do not know how it FEELS to have your own child and no, you could never love another woman's child like your own so I wish you PAP's and adoptive parents would stop spewing that bullcrap. There is a special, sacred bond between mother and child that you will never know, and since I am a mother myself I know what that feels like. I have imagined how I would feel if I adopted a child after I had my child and I see blaringly clear how I would feel differant towards the adopted child. My adoptive mother abused me, neglected me, did not protect me and set out to destroy me in my teen years. We do not speak, and she does not care. Adoptiove parents seem to think a baby's life is all ABOUT them and it is not. You people are given unnatural parental power that effcts all adoptees negativly, and do treat us like we are there to serve a purpose for YOU, not to be who we are (because that reminds you you couldn't have a kid, which is unhealthy for us). Since you bought us, most adoptive parents are ruthless control freaks which destroys adoptees as well-if you don't like that you can't get pregant then go to God with it, so you can accept it, but leave innocent babies out of it-you have no right to hurt us because you can't have what you want. I think it is obvious too, that if there was no money involved in adoption, after all the hell it has caused adoptees and real parents, IT WOULD BE ILLEGAL.
We adopted our little boy through Adoption Advantage and had a wonderful experience and are going through the agency again and feel very confident in our decision to do so. So confident that I recommended them to my brother and sister-in-law and they are currently on the list with them too. Without their dedication and hard work, I would not have my son.
Thank you Adoption Advantage,
Gina and Spencer
"In response to this post , I imagine that there are many adopted children out there who are grateful they were adopted"
NO! I am NOT gratful I am adopted-I AM FURIOUS I AM ADOPTED AND HAD TO GO THROUGHT HT EHLL EVERYDAY FOR 18 YEARS WONDERING WHAT MY MOMS NAME WAS, WHO SHE WAS, WHAT SHE LOOKED LIKE, WHAT HER VOICE SOUNDED LIKE, IF SHE WAS DEAD OR ALIVE, and I have to say I HATE the adoption industry for putting me through that-I was never happy, I was always nervous and depressed and another issue that rarely comes up about adoption is that you know we DO wonder if our parents are dead-and since we do not know and are told we CANNOT know, do you have any idea what that does to a kid? Part of us greives like our moms are dead, because since we are not told, we greive in case they are-so alot of our childhood is mouring our could be dead mothers? Do you think that is healthy? And as far as this "grateful" crap is concerned, that is a condesending comment constructed out of predjudice towards "bastards" and you know well know it. It says that is what you get so feel shame for being born out of wedlock. We should feel grateful.........pfft.......PLEASE, for what, for being told we can NOT know our real parents names because adoption agencys wanted that so they could adopt out more babies and adoptive parents would not hesitate to adopt because they were afraid our moms would find us? And that IS the truth, and all you damn agency's know it-that whole birth mothers privacy bs is cover deep deep well of deception and Christians, and everyone who continue to perpetuate this lie as I said before are going to hell.
To the person who wrote the first post on here to you I say THIS-THERE IS NOTHING CHRISTIAN ABOUT ADOPTION. BEING AN ADOPTEE, AND A VICTIM OF A CLOSED RECORD ADOPTION, I AM SICK AND TIRED OF HOW CHRISTIANS TWIST WRONGDOINGS INTO GOD'S WILL. TAKING AN INNCOCENT CHILD (AND NOT FORGIVING THAT CHILD FOR BEING A BASTARD IN THE FIRST PLACE LIKE CHRISTIANS ARE SUPPOSED TOO) AND RIPPING THAT BABY AWAY FROM HIS OR HER MOTHER, THEN LYING THAT THE MOTHER WANTED TO GIVE THE BABY AWAY, AND WANTING PRIVACY FROM HER BABY FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE, SO BABY STEALING ADOPTIVE PARENTS CAN NOT BE HARRASSED BY HER LIKE THEY DESERVE TO BE, AND SO AGENCIES CN MAKE MILLONS IF ONE OF THE BIGGEST SINS ON EARTH AND ALL OF YOU INVOLVED ARE GOING TO HELL. DO YOU HEAR THAT? HELL, HELL, HELL!!!! TO FURTHER YOUR DIGUSTING SINS, YOU DESTROY US ADOPTEES BY NOT LETTING US KNOW OUR MOTHER'S AND FATHER'S NAME, MAKE US FEEL USED AND LIKE OUR WHOLE LIVES ARE NOTHING BUT BEING A CURE FOR SOME STRANGERS INFERTILITY-YOU MAKE US FEEL UNIMPORTANT, WORTHLESS AND GIVE US THE MESSAGE WE SHOULD FEEL ASHAMED OF OURSELVES EVERY DAY. HATE TO BREAK IT TO YOU SCUZBAGS BUT THAT AIN'T LOVE! IF A COUPLE CANNOT HAVE A BABY THEN I AM SORRY BUT THAT IS IT-SELLING INFANTS IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING, IT IS EVIL, AND OUR LIVES ARE ABOUT US, WHO OUR FAMILIIES ARE, WHAT OUR NATIONALITES ARE, WHO WE LOOK LIKE, NOT ABOUT BEING BALM FOR SOME HYSTERICAL, BITTER, WOMAN'S WOUNDS. GOOD CHRISTIANS WOULD DO ALL THEY CAN TOKEEP MOTHER AND CHILD TOGETHER, INCLUDING GIVING THE MOM MONEY FROM THE CHURCH AND ONE'S OWN POCKET AND OFFERING DAY CARE FOR HER-ADOPTION IS AN ABOMINATION OF ALL CHRIST TAUGHT, AND THE FACT THAT THE CHURCHES HAVE HEARD FOR YEARS ABOUT ALL THE PAIN WE ARE IN BECAUSE OF THE CLOSED RECORDS AND OUR MOM'S ARE IN, AND YET YOU DAMN PEOPLE KEEP FIGHTING FOR THEM TO STAY CLOSED, AND ONLY CARE ABOUT YOUR DAMN DEVIL MONEY PROVES THAT YOU ARE ABOUT AS CHRISTIAN AS LUCIFER. COUPLES WHO CAN NOT CONCEIVE ARE NOT OWED ANOTHER WOMAN'S BABY-GROW UP. ACCEPT IT. BUT STOP ABUSING US AND OUR MOM'S AND OPEN OUR RECORDS NOW (OR BURN IN HELL LOSERS!)
" have adopted AND birtch children-3 of each. i love them all the same and that is the honest truth. DONT TELL ME HOW I FEEL! you only have a birth child, you admit you do not have an adopted child so how do you KNOW?????????????? you are being very judgemental and i highly doubt it is due to the fact that you are adopted. you are negative, rude and downright nasty BY CHOICE."
Only have a birth child? What, are you retarded? You are a total demonic b*itch-no wonder your name is Crawford-and my child is not my "birth" child stupid, I had her alone and kept her, so scuz bag losers like you couldn't get their hands on her.
I have sat back and watched adoptive parents slander our agency's name for some time now. It is really sad because I need to be working on finding a match and making adoptions happen for these people, but now I am reduced to spending a good portion of my day surfing the internet to defend myself.
Many of the statements that have been made about us by prior clients are listed as anonymous so I can't answer to every statement but some of the statments I can answer to because I know who you are.
Thank you, Amy, for being brave enough for at least listing your name. I will start with you first. It is true that you have had to wait a long time for a baby and have had three failed matches as you listed in your story. We are always very upfront with clients when they sign up with us and explain that birth mothers do have a right to change their mind about an adoption. Everyone on our staff works very hard to make these placments go through, but sometimes there is just nothing we can do. Any adoption professional will agree. Your last failed placement was particularly heart breaking because you did travel for so long, but that is adoption. You got to talk to this birthmother before she delivered and you felt good about her placing as well-or at least that is what you told our caseworker. The caseworker in this case put in countless hours with this birth mother and even went to her house (in a terribly dangerous part of TN) at night and banged on her door trying to get the birth mother to face her. She also left countless messages on her phone attempting to counsel with her. Molly is one of our finest caseworkers and I feel she did everything possible to make this placement work for you.
I am totally fine with clients who want to tell their story about Adoption Advantage, but please remember to include all details such as the fact that you are gender specific. We always tell clients that when they are gender specific that the adoption process will take much longer. You are very close to being matched because you are the only couple on our list for what you want. So please hang in there, you will get a child. As far as not calling you after it happened: We have had clients in your situation who get mad at us for calling and clients who get mad at us for not calling. It seems that no matter what I have my staff do, someone is always mad. My approach is to give you a while to work through some of your grief and then to call and check on you. However, you know that anyone in our staff is available for you and you are welcome to pick up the phone and call us for support if you want it.
Katie-I believe you are listed as anonymous, but I know it is you because you are the only client I have threatened to sue. However you left out part of your story as well. I do not have a problem with you telling truthful things about our agency, but you have contacted several clients and have told them, or written false information about us. If you continue to do that I have no other choice but to bring legal action against you. Please tell your story-but tell the truth. The fact is you signed up with our agency and got a baby very fast, I believe it was less than 3 months. It took a bit longer than normal to finalize your adoption because of some legal issues regarding your case that the agency had no control over. However your adoption was finalized. The other statements that you have made regarding the birth mother of your child and other statements are false. Those are the things that I asked you to discontinue saying; not truthful things that happened in your case.
Looking for Hope-I am sorry I do not know who you are. I am sorry that you have had to wait so long. However, I can tell you that we show all of our families many times a month and your turn will come and hopefully soon. It is true that we do not require the funds up front. Families can pay the funds up front and if they do then they recieve a 10% waiver of fees. So it is the client's option. I do find it hard to believe that you have not talked to a caseworker or me in a year and a half. We do keep notes on every client and I do not have a client who has not talked to us in a year and a half. Again, you are always welcome to pick up the phone and ask for me or our director, Ed. We will be more than happy to talk to you. I urge you to call us so we can discuss why it has been so long and you have not been offered a match. For instance I wonder if the criteria that you set is making it difficult to find a match for you? Please remember that we first have to meet your criteria and then find a birth mother who is willing to match with you. Perhaps some updating on your portfolio would help? So, again I urge you to call and talk to us. Posting on this site is not going to help you and is only contributing to the fears that all adoptive parents have and I cannot help you unless you talk to me.
David-I do know who you are and I welcome anyone to call licensing as well. You can call Shirley Preston in the Little Rock office and Debbie Childress in the Tennessee office. I will be happy to provide those numbers for you. These ladies have been working with us since we have been licensed and know our history so please make sure you talk to someone in DHS who has the correct information. As far as calling other adoption agencies and attorneys in the state: Adoption is a highly competitive field. While we are not in the habit of saying bad things about other agencies there are many who will. Adoption Advantage has been very successful in placing children in the state of Arkansas and many small agencies have stopped their domestic program because they cannot recruit the number of birth mothers that we do. We spend a lot of advertising dollars to recruit these birthmothers that other agencies and attorneys are not willing to spend. We also work 24/7 to take care of them and many agencies and attorneys are not willing to do that either. Of course those same agencies would love to have your business so be careful who you get information from or it could cause you to lose out on a very good situation.
I appreciate all of the potential clients checking in to us. It is always my desire to give you factual, up to date information. However please be aware that usually people who post on the internet are usually people who are angry and hurt. Much of the time, in adoption, when a birth mother changes her mind a client becomes very angry. Since they cannot get to the birth mother, then the target is us. It is very unfortunate because I have a wonderful staff and we all work very hard to make adoptions happen.
We are not a "scam". We have been practising for 16 years and have placed close to 400 children. We are licensed in two states and if there was so much bad against us, that was true, then why would we keep getting our license renewed?
And finally, thank you to the few people who took enough time out of their day to take up for us. I welcome and encourage anyone to email or call me if they would like for me to answer any questions. My number is 501-376-7778.
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Reviews
I am responding to this
I am responding to this paragraph written by Adoption Advantage:
"We are always very upfront with clients when they sign up with us and explain that birth mothers do have a right to change their mind about an adoption. Everyone on our staff works very hard to make these placments go through, but sometimes there is just nothing we can do. Any adoption professional will agree. Your last failed placement was particularly heart breaking because you did travel for so long, but that is adoption. You got to talk to this birthmother before she delivered and you felt good about her placing as well-or at least that is what you told our caseworker. The caseworker in this case put in countless hours with this birth mother and even went to her house (in a terribly dangerous part of TN) at night and banged on her door trying to get the birth mother to face her. She also left countless messages on her phone attempting to counsel with her. Molly is one of our finest caseworkers and I feel she did everything possible to make this placement work for you."
So, even though MOTHERS (not "birthmothers") can choose not to place their children for adoption, they agency still works very hard to make a placement go through? This work includes harassing a mother in the middle of the night? Legal, perhaps. Ethical, most certainly not.
Ethically speaking as well, women who haven't given birth aren't "birthmothers." Mothers who haven't relinquished their children are not "birthmothers." They are expectant mothers and mothers, respectively.
owner threatened us
We had a bad experience with this agency. The owner has threatened to sue us if we tell our story.
Also, the promises made to the birthmothers are not followed through. We have lots of contact with our sons birthmother and she told us the truth.
Adoption Advantage--Too Good To Be True
I will briefly state my dealings with Adoption Advantage because I promised to do so. I did not contract them after all because I felt they were trying to take advantage of us.
--- When I initially contacted AA I spoke with Karen. Karen was, or is, a heartwarming sounding person, someone you can trust with your life. She sent me a copy of the contract on a Friday and urged me to hurry up and sign it so I can pick-up any BMs that come in over the weekend. But we didn't like the way the contract left us open and unprotected. While contemplating the signing of it, Karen called to tell us about a young mother who was pregnant again but could not parent another child. We were not yet clients as we did not sign the contract but she was calling us to see if we were interested. She said it was an agency match and that the mother was due Sept 1. I was overjoyed with the prospect of having a baby to love so quickly in our searching efforts with them.
That night when we spoke, she said the mother was due on Aug 16, and when I questioned her she said she had gotten her confused with another birth mom that she was also trying to match. I had to ask her about that mom as well, of course, I just couldn't leave it alone and after hearing all about her couldn't decide between both moms and asked if I could adopt both children. After she gets the ok from the director she said she would send me the new contract with the new agency fee asking for all the money upfront for two adoptions minus a discount. I was on cloud nine and called my social worker (independent) to tell her the great news and that she would have to update my homestudy for them.
My social worker was not comfortable with any of it, and questioned about the fact that I was not only being offered a BM so quickly and possibly ahead of their other clients, but two. She wondered, don't they have other clients that they can offer these BM to, why you if you are not their clients yet. None of this had crossed my mind, I was just happy to have been chosen.
I began going back and forth with Karen on the contract trying to decide if they were trying to deceive me or did they really have two Moms’ for us. She kept warning that they have to match their BMs within 24 hrs and kept telling me that she could not continue to make these BMs wait for us any longer, although she did, but the urgency to make a decision quick was always there. My social worker cautioned me that they may be trying to lure me in for the fee and then tell me later that the mothers had changed their minds and keep me on a waiting list until they really do have a situation for us and that it could be years and that I would have no way of proving that they had, in fact done this. So naturally I want to speak to the BMs, I want to know for sure.
Karen can sense my apprehension with all my questions and tells me that she's going to have me talk to Stephanie who deals directly with the BMs and could answer any questions I have. She was really sweet about it and I felt I was talking to my loving Aunt who was going to help me.
Stephanie on the other hand was the opposite of Karen, she was a fast talker and although had a lot to say, actually said very little, she reminded me of a used-car salesman. I realized Stephanie was the closer of this deal and, in fact, was the killer of the deal. She would not let me speak to the BMs and said that no one is really matched until they have signed the contract first and paid the agency fee. When I protested that it was Karen who contacted me with a BM match for me, she said that when they have a BM who has not chosen any of the parents on file, that it is then that they do an agency match.
So, am I being matched or not? Were there really two mothers who did not pick from the current parent profiles and that's why Karen called me? Had they asked all the waiting couples that I have read about on this website and they had all declined? If they did have no one else for these moms, why then would they not work with us to make us feel more secure? Why the objection to produce the proof? Was this a classic case of Bait and Switch? You be the judge.
Not recommending AAdvantage
"I did not appreciate being called about Potential Matches and then being told to "overnight 30k"
That has us a bit on edge as well. We are afraid that their call may be just a lure to get our money and then break the news that birthmother "changed her mind", when in fact there was no real match to us, to begin with. A part of me, refuses to believe that a licensed agency would be so unethical and cruel and put themselves on the line like that. But the other part of me knows that there are a few agencies with questionable practices. I just hope this one is not one of them.
We did check with the Better Business Bureau and they do have two formal complaints against them and were "resolved" because AP's did not pursue. It was particularly alarming for us because they involved issues with the contract. We wouldn't want to start off on the wrong foot already. We want to have a great experience and feel good about the outcome---that we helped a mother who needed to make an adoption plan because of her circumstances, whatever they might be, and that she in turn gave us the gift of parenting a child who we will love and cherish all the days of our lives. We want to be able to share our wonderful experience, not just of the mother, but of the agency as well, who for all intents and purposes, is the medium through which such a blessing could occur. The potential of the agency is paramount not just for the AP's but for the pregnant mother's as well. And we the APs and BMs are extremely vital to them as we become either their greatest advocates for their continued success or their greatest adversaries.
If anyone has anything to share about this agency, please do so, hold nothing back. I promise to do the same. We will post if we did decide to use them and how our experience went and we will also post if we didn't and why we didn't. The need for this website would be counter-productive if we didn't share our stories with each other, whether good or bad. These are the checks and balances.
Adoption Advantage
The agency called us this past year about adopting an infant. High risk placement due to legal abandonment. Told us it was very unusual for them to call people who were not clients of their agency but they did so because they could not place the baby out of state and we were in the state and open to this particular adoption situation.
They wanted all of the money and fees up front and said they would put a rush on this adoption--and would get the baby placed with us within weeks. We told them we were not comfortable paying all the fees up front (which a reputable agency should never ask you to do) but offered to pay up front for the homestudy, background checks--all the fees we would normally have had to pay up front--and said we would be willing to put the rest in an escrow account payable to the agency once parental rights were terminated--so the agency would know we were acting in good faith. The terms of the escrow would be that the money in the account would be returned to us if for some reason the adoption did not go through.
The woman we spoke with said they would check with their director about this and call us back. They never called us. We tried calling the agency but they did not take out call until a couple weeks later. When I asked about the baby, the woman said the birthmother had suddenly changed her mind.
However, by chance we actually met the couple who adopted this baby at our adoption support group (and also saw the baby we had been hoping and praying for ever since this agency called us. She was so beautiful.) Turns out when we weren't agreeable to paying all the money for this adoption up front, the agency then contacted this other couple and offered them a discounted rate for the adoption if they paid everything to them up front. This couple took a chance and did this and thankfully for them it worked out.
The person I talked with stressed that they were a "Christian agency" who would be "praying for me and my husband" regarding this adoption. When in truth they lied to us and were more interested in $$$ and offloading their financial risk on their prospective adoptive parents.
Beware!
Adoption Advantage
We did have an upsetting experience with Adoption Advantage but are very happy for the both of you for having completed your family.
We are a family now thanks to God & Adoption Advantage
It is sad that some people have not even used this agency and are posting negative things about them. We signed up with them last year in March and welcomed our beautiful baby girl into our family in August. There were a few bumps along the way, but NO agency will be perfect. I was kinda weary about the upfront fees, but if the adoption fell through the adoption fees would go toward our next situation. We had a really close match, but it fell through. Adoption Advantage always returned our phone calls (sometimes it took them a day or two, but if something came up they called us immediately).
Meeting our Birthmom and our hospital experience was EXCELLENT.
They do have some staff issues, as in new people coming in and out, but the main people that we dealt with after our match have been there since we signed up. I know some of our case workers lived a ways off from where our daughter was born, so there was a lot of driving involved also.
If you are considering this agency, don't just email or call them. Go to one of their offices and visit with them. You will not find them sitting around twittling their tumbs. Everytime we went (the first time just to meet everyone and get a tour) everyone is always busy.
Through God, this agency helped up create our family, and we will be signing back up with them again SOON! We are wanting to expand our family even more!
Thank you, Adoption Advantage!!!
Came across this accidently...
I was actually looking for the Adoption Advantage site to find an email address but found this instead.
My name is Christina. I had put my son up for adoption through this agency Jan. 2004. I got to meet his adoptive parents and I decided to keep my adoption an open adoption. That means that I can still recieve pictures of my son from time to time.
My only complaint about the agency is everytime I call for pictures, I talk to a different person everytime. The new person will tell me that the person I talked to, just a few months ago, quit or something else happened. That gets a little frustrating now because I have been trying to recieve pictures recently and I honestly don't know who to contact this time around.
Everytime I get to know somebody and they tell me that I can trust them and call for them next time... I just get another person or even worse, they don't know what I am talking about.
I have also been trying to contact them to update my information.
Thanks,
Christina
AA To Gina
I want to offer an apology if you felt I was unsympathetic, rude or judgemental in any way. It is not my intention to come across that way. I think this forum is a great avenue for information and expression and in no way would I want our differences of opinion to be misconstrued. Again, I offer my apologies if I offended you in any way.
wait!
gina didnt seem rude or angry to me at all. matter of opinion i guess. why shouldnt both sides be heard? dont we have a right to defend a group of hard working people we grew close to? people who helped us to grow our families? and as far as JUDGING(which one of you did) what it is like to i have children, claiming that you would be "too busy" to post a comment on a website... well, whats that about???? how do you know? its not like our kids spend every single second on our lap crying. i have 5 kids, but i still have time to post in here and respond to others at times. besides, i get an e mail every time someone posts about AA in here, not like im stalking the website lol. although our adoption with AA went well, a prior international adoption DID NOT. we have been through the ringer too, so we feel for both sides, i promise. i will never totally get over what we went through (time, heartache, money)to get him home and 5 years later hes still a RAD kid who threatens to kill me in my sleep. it aint all roses! YOU have a right to state that it went badly, and WE have a right to tell OUR story as well. if you dont want to read it, then dont!
Sorry you feel that way
I am sorry that you are so bitter. I was looking through cafemom.com and happened upon this posting and was just wanting to see what it said. I am going through the process again if you did not read it correctly the first time? I have great communication with the agency and always have (for the past 4 years). I have not had any of these things that are mentioned on the website happen to me so I am unsure of their truths. I am so sorry that some of you have had negative dealings with adoption and I hope that your pain gets better with time.
Adoption Advantage
I want to start by saying that I am not contracted with Adoption Advantage, though I have had many phone comversations with many of the staff in considering which agency to go through. I have found them to be very honest and giving of information. I have contacted 9 or 10 Adoptive familiess created with the help of Adoption Advantage. I enjoyed the honesty of these families, stories about failed adoptions, disrupted adoptions, and of finalized adoptions.
Everyone must make decisions based on any information they can find...though I believe talking to families who have worked with Adoption Advantage (not just reading posts) is more helpful.
As far as the mothers deciding to parent at anytime during the process I know that this hurts, My Husband and I have been through it 3 times...two times the children were in our homes and then had to be returned so I know the emotions. Though I believe that by any means possible a child should be with their birthfamily...only if that is not possible then an adoption should occur. I should also share that my Husband and I are foster parents so I am actually living what I believe in, assisting birthfamilies in reunification with their children.
If a child is unable to return home we are open for adoption...We have adopted one child through the foster care system and are looking into a domestic adoption.
If you are looking for a truthful opinion of Adoption Advantage then find families inpacted by them and talk to them or meet them...
don't fall for the venting people do about everything online.
This is long - but worth the
This is long - but worth the read! Try me. If not, post your comments and direct them to my subject line. If you do read it - please read it in its entirety.
I have no reason to pick a side of this debate, so I say this sort of as an outsider since we have not used any agency yet but are thinking about it. Would everyone stop and take a look and listen to what you are saying. Some of you may be forgetting facts that you may have heard from the agency or should have read for yourselves or maybe even in someone else's ignorance have been mistold. Look through the packet yourselves and see for yourself. What do you read? Go by that. Not what someone else says. If that is different than what the agency says then have grief with THEM first. Check out the facts. To the person who wrote "owner threatened us"; you mentioned the birthmother told you the truth. How can you be so sure? I don't know the circumstance but listen to your statement. How do you know you can believe her instead of the agency? Can she not lie? Did you think there might be a motive there? Think about it. Sorry to rain on everybody's negativity and sorry for any true bad problems you all have had, I truly am and I wouldn't want it on anyone. I just think everyone has to be very careful the things you say and make sure they are facts. Don' t just feed off the fuel that each of you are creating. I did that one time and found out the hard way that I was wrong. I was given wrong information and I took it as truth. It was a hard pill to swallow but when that happens you have to use it and learn from it.
There is a risk that is very real and devastating in some cases when dealing with a birth mom who is allowed to change their mind. - Can you blame them when they see that precious baby? But we all go in to it knowing that ( its in the packet). Remember we choose how much we want to support the mom. (its in the packet,too.)We also have to remember that we are dealing with lives. Some of the wordings of ALL comments sounds like this is some kind of market and we have this agency out here shopping for us. This is all sounding like it is being made out to be all they have to do is go out and find these women having babies and get one for us. ( I am fighting for the right wording here. I hope I am getting my point across.) Realize here, are we encouraging people to make the right choices when they can't keep their own child. But we are not to be creating a market where people are having babies on purpose to support the great adoption market or because of the money in it. Isn't that called something? And who might be reading this? Is a birth mom reading this? What does she think? We truly want her to know we will love that child as if it were our own and will fight for it and want what is best for it and that it is truly wanted by any of us. There is a fine line for all involved - including any agency to be ware what is happening here. We have to be careful because when we start using the terms business and recruiting and competitive field - we begin to question the goal here ultimately - to make a better life for a child. To cause them to be given life - period. To give that mom a hope. I understand to a certain extent that we do have to "recruit" these moms as far as letting them know they have the option of adoption instead of abortion but we have to be careful that we are not encouraging pregnancy in the first place to keep the market going. The field should not be "competitive ". It doesn't matter who she goes through as long as she chooses life. Let all who read this heed that. Just be there and give these moms information and let them see this would be the best alternative to keeping their baby themselves. Pray for these moms. Pray God will guide them to make the choice that would most honor Him. I realize too that some of you may not necessarily be part of a Christian home, you just want what each of us want. A child of your own. But we as adoptive parents have the chance to change a life and show them the grace of God. What a beautiful example of grace adoption is. Let's make sure we have the right motives for (side 1) being in the adoption "business" and (side 2) for wanting to adopt. To give the grace we have been given.
I understand everyone wants to warn people if they feel there is a danger. But we need to have the facts right. If that is you, good. If it is not, then you know who you are. But everyone else doesn't. Like I said, I am neutral as far as which side I fall on - but maybe I can help both sides to do a better job and be a better person. This is just like a fight going on at a church. Who are you helping here? What good is going to come of it? It just keeps out those who need to be there. ( I have learned that the hard way, too;by being in a church that didn't have all the facts.) We are going to keep out those who would make excellent adoptive parents because they don't want to have to go through all this. And we may keep out the very ones we are called to help - these precious moms and babies.
God bless our feeble efforts to do Your will! God bless us with a child if it is Your will! Amen.
I have not dealt with them
I have not dealt with them yet except to get a packet and speak by phone. I do know someone who has gone throught AA twice and has not mentioned anything negative to me. I know someone else who has a contract with them but are now expecting their own 2nd child and have not mentioned anything negative except maybe not updated as often as were promised but have moved up on the list to a spot in good enough position to hopefully be placed soon. Alot of it depends on who the Bmom chooses is the way I understand it, too. I am considering them. When you help a b'mom you are taking a risk but it is up to you how much support you want to give them the way I understand it. And another factor is how specific you want to be on what you will accept. Gender, race, disability, etc. Obviously the more open you are to any of these the quicker you may be placed. This is the kinds of things I have been told.
Adoption Advantage
We are also looking in to this agency, We are not sure what to do at all. All the money is up front 28k.
Has anyone has success with them recently or does anyone know anything about them.
We have a close friend who had success with them, But know we are on the fence on what to do
nothing but failed adoptions!
We have been signed with Ad. Advantage for a year and have had 3 failed adoptions. The first one, the birthmother changed her mind immediately after giving birth, after we had paid her bills for a month and a half. The 2nd one, the couple changed their mind before giving birth so there was just disappointment. The third and final, we got in our car, traveled 11 hours to bond with mom and baby at the hospital and the next day she took off without a word to anyone. And 4 days later, I haven't heard anything from anyone at the agency. They are unethical, unprofessional and I would look elsewhere before losing any time, money or experiencing the heartbreak we have!
Not recommending AAdvantage
We investigated using this agency, and even applied to them. They require ALL funds UP FRONT!!! And, if a situation falls through, you are not refunded the money.
I have no idea how they treat birth families, but I did not get a good feeling about it. I did not appreciate being called about Potential Matches and then being told to "overnight 30k if you are interested."
Please, go somewhere else!!
Has Any One Worked With this agency (adoption Advantage)
We Are Not Sure, What to do this seems like a very Crazy Process. There seems to be some good reviews and some bad ones. We just want to make sure we are making the right decision. PLEASE HELP
Adoption Advantage, Little Rock.
ADOPTION IS NOT CHRISTIAN
" have adopted AND birtch children-3 of each. i love them all the same and that is the honest truth. DONT TELL ME HOW I FEEL! you only have a birth child, you admit you do not have an adopted child so how do you KNOW?????????????? you are being very judgemental and i highly doubt it is due to the fact that you are adopted. you are negative, rude and downright nasty BY CHOICE."
I am not rude-you are-I am not negative, I speak only of a totally negative system-I am not nasty, YOU are-AND YOU ARE A TERRIBLE ADOPTIVE MOTHER TO TALK TO ANY ADOPTEE LIKE YOU TALK TO ME. UP YOURS!!!!!!! Now please go play in the middle of the road......
ADOPTION IS NOT CHRISTIAN
"Our adoption system is a mess. Judging from the comments of unethical agency behavior on this board just in the last week proves that. I am so sorry to hear you were placed with an abusive parent. That was criminal! We have two children by birth and one through adoption. I think bonding has a lot to do with personalities more than anything else. It may surprise some that the child I have the closest relationship to is the one we adopted and she was an older infant at the time of adoption. I love all of my children, but she and I definitely connect the most. She has an open adoption and I agree with you that she and her first mom have a special bond, but it doesn't prevent her from bonding with me or anyone else.
To the poster above, you deserved a better mom".
You know what, this brings up and issue NEVER discussed and that is do in part to the corrupt adoption industries BS PR campaign-(ie: we want money, money, money, money, money and we don't care who we hurt to get rich)there is no guarntee that any baby, who becomes a child, teen or an adult is going to genuinely LIKE their adopted mother or father-we do not even HAVE YOUR DNA, we are NOT really part of YOUR family or are we a part of YOU-I meet many people just on the street who I have bad feelings about or just do not instantly like and this totally can happen in adoption too and the problem is too that the adoptive parents only see a little baby, they don't see the long term picture-NO one has a right to expect an adoptee to like their adoptive parents if they don't want too-disliking someone is a chemical reaction too alot of the time and no adoption agency can predict what is going to happen-at least when the child is your own, even though there might be a few differances, the bond is stronger-I will say to the poster I quoted, yes, I did derserve a better mother-I DESERVED MY OWN REAL MOTHER AND I NEVER WANTED A FAKE ONE-there are alot of posers in here of course-social workers, agency employees and adoptive parents who will make up stories to vie for adoption so I take all I read with a grain of salt-but even if one has an adoptive mother who wasn't a child abuser nutcase like mine was/is adoptive parents have to realize THAT CLOSED ADOPTION RECORDS IS CHILD ABUSE-we are not circus animals-you can not expect us to perform the way you want us too-to believe we are your real children, to not want to vomit because an infertiles woman is named as our mother on our ammended BC's(because that says, no it screams, that our real idenities are not important, so therefore WE are not important)-it is perfectly NORMAL and HUMAN for us to want to know who our real parents are and all other information pertaining to us and you must remember too, that that info is OURS and it has nothing to do with you, our bodies have nothing to do with you because you did not make them-so hence, we have a right to know all about the people who made us us, and their DNA-to deny any human being that is satanic and psychotic. I hope the woman I quotedabobe with never interfere with her adopted daughter and her real mother-if you truley love this girl you will not and you will tame your jealoulsy for her sake-this whole situation reminds me of divorcing couples fighting over the child and it is NOT healthy for the child or if that child is now an adult-I do apprecitate you saying I should not of been abused-never heard that from MY adoptive mother......and I never will......
ADOPTION IS NOT CHRISTIAN
And to Donna, the agency's director, I say this:
We all know who gets the "Advantge" and it ain't us adoptees or our real moms. To all adoption ageny's F U.......!!!!! for what you have done to us, especially in closed adoption. Have fun rotting in hell Donna, you big bag of smelly crap......you deserve it....
ADOPTION ISN'T CHRISTIAN
The first poster said this:
And who might be reading this? Is a birth mom reading this? What does she think? We truly want her to know we will love that child as if it were our own"
As an adoptee, an abused adoptee I am going to tell you that that is a lie. First of all, you do not know how it FEELS to have your own child and no, you could never love another woman's child like your own so I wish you PAP's and adoptive parents would stop spewing that bullcrap. There is a special, sacred bond between mother and child that you will never know, and since I am a mother myself I know what that feels like. I have imagined how I would feel if I adopted a child after I had my child and I see blaringly clear how I would feel differant towards the adopted child. My adoptive mother abused me, neglected me, did not protect me and set out to destroy me in my teen years. We do not speak, and she does not care. Adoptiove parents seem to think a baby's life is all ABOUT them and it is not. You people are given unnatural parental power that effcts all adoptees negativly, and do treat us like we are there to serve a purpose for YOU, not to be who we are (because that reminds you you couldn't have a kid, which is unhealthy for us). Since you bought us, most adoptive parents are ruthless control freaks which destroys adoptees as well-if you don't like that you can't get pregant then go to God with it, so you can accept it, but leave innocent babies out of it-you have no right to hurt us because you can't have what you want. I think it is obvious too, that if there was no money involved in adoption, after all the hell it has caused adoptees and real parents, IT WOULD BE ILLEGAL.
I am RECOMMENDING Adoption Advantage
We adopted our little boy through Adoption Advantage and had a wonderful experience and are going through the agency again and feel very confident in our decision to do so. So confident that I recommended them to my brother and sister-in-law and they are currently on the list with them too. Without their dedication and hard work, I would not have my son.
Thank you Adoption Advantage,
Gina and Spencer
ADOPTION IS NOT CHRISITAN
"In response to this post , I imagine that there are many adopted children out there who are grateful they were adopted"
NO! I am NOT gratful I am adopted-I AM FURIOUS I AM ADOPTED AND HAD TO GO THROUGHT HT EHLL EVERYDAY FOR 18 YEARS WONDERING WHAT MY MOMS NAME WAS, WHO SHE WAS, WHAT SHE LOOKED LIKE, WHAT HER VOICE SOUNDED LIKE, IF SHE WAS DEAD OR ALIVE, and I have to say I HATE the adoption industry for putting me through that-I was never happy, I was always nervous and depressed and another issue that rarely comes up about adoption is that you know we DO wonder if our parents are dead-and since we do not know and are told we CANNOT know, do you have any idea what that does to a kid? Part of us greives like our moms are dead, because since we are not told, we greive in case they are-so alot of our childhood is mouring our could be dead mothers? Do you think that is healthy? And as far as this "grateful" crap is concerned, that is a condesending comment constructed out of predjudice towards "bastards" and you know well know it. It says that is what you get so feel shame for being born out of wedlock. We should feel grateful.........pfft.......PLEASE, for what, for being told we can NOT know our real parents names because adoption agencys wanted that so they could adopt out more babies and adoptive parents would not hesitate to adopt because they were afraid our moms would find us? And that IS the truth, and all you damn agency's know it-that whole birth mothers privacy bs is cover deep deep well of deception and Christians, and everyone who continue to perpetuate this lie as I said before are going to hell.
ADOPTION IS NOT CHRISTIAN
To the person who wrote the first post on here to you I say THIS-THERE IS NOTHING CHRISTIAN ABOUT ADOPTION. BEING AN ADOPTEE, AND A VICTIM OF A CLOSED RECORD ADOPTION, I AM SICK AND TIRED OF HOW CHRISTIANS TWIST WRONGDOINGS INTO GOD'S WILL. TAKING AN INNCOCENT CHILD (AND NOT FORGIVING THAT CHILD FOR BEING A BASTARD IN THE FIRST PLACE LIKE CHRISTIANS ARE SUPPOSED TOO) AND RIPPING THAT BABY AWAY FROM HIS OR HER MOTHER, THEN LYING THAT THE MOTHER WANTED TO GIVE THE BABY AWAY, AND WANTING PRIVACY FROM HER BABY FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE, SO BABY STEALING ADOPTIVE PARENTS CAN NOT BE HARRASSED BY HER LIKE THEY DESERVE TO BE, AND SO AGENCIES CN MAKE MILLONS IF ONE OF THE BIGGEST SINS ON EARTH AND ALL OF YOU INVOLVED ARE GOING TO HELL. DO YOU HEAR THAT? HELL, HELL, HELL!!!! TO FURTHER YOUR DIGUSTING SINS, YOU DESTROY US ADOPTEES BY NOT LETTING US KNOW OUR MOTHER'S AND FATHER'S NAME, MAKE US FEEL USED AND LIKE OUR WHOLE LIVES ARE NOTHING BUT BEING A CURE FOR SOME STRANGERS INFERTILITY-YOU MAKE US FEEL UNIMPORTANT, WORTHLESS AND GIVE US THE MESSAGE WE SHOULD FEEL ASHAMED OF OURSELVES EVERY DAY. HATE TO BREAK IT TO YOU SCUZBAGS BUT THAT AIN'T LOVE! IF A COUPLE CANNOT HAVE A BABY THEN I AM SORRY BUT THAT IS IT-SELLING INFANTS IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING, IT IS EVIL, AND OUR LIVES ARE ABOUT US, WHO OUR FAMILIIES ARE, WHAT OUR NATIONALITES ARE, WHO WE LOOK LIKE, NOT ABOUT BEING BALM FOR SOME HYSTERICAL, BITTER, WOMAN'S WOUNDS. GOOD CHRISTIANS WOULD DO ALL THEY CAN TOKEEP MOTHER AND CHILD TOGETHER, INCLUDING GIVING THE MOM MONEY FROM THE CHURCH AND ONE'S OWN POCKET AND OFFERING DAY CARE FOR HER-ADOPTION IS AN ABOMINATION OF ALL CHRIST TAUGHT, AND THE FACT THAT THE CHURCHES HAVE HEARD FOR YEARS ABOUT ALL THE PAIN WE ARE IN BECAUSE OF THE CLOSED RECORDS AND OUR MOM'S ARE IN, AND YET YOU DAMN PEOPLE KEEP FIGHTING FOR THEM TO STAY CLOSED, AND ONLY CARE ABOUT YOUR DAMN DEVIL MONEY PROVES THAT YOU ARE ABOUT AS CHRISTIAN AS LUCIFER. COUPLES WHO CAN NOT CONCEIVE ARE NOT OWED ANOTHER WOMAN'S BABY-GROW UP. ACCEPT IT. BUT STOP ABUSING US AND OUR MOM'S AND OPEN OUR RECORDS NOW (OR BURN IN HELL LOSERS!)
ADOPTION IS NOT CHRISTAN
" have adopted AND birtch children-3 of each. i love them all the same and that is the honest truth. DONT TELL ME HOW I FEEL! you only have a birth child, you admit you do not have an adopted child so how do you KNOW?????????????? you are being very judgemental and i highly doubt it is due to the fact that you are adopted. you are negative, rude and downright nasty BY CHOICE."
Only have a birth child? What, are you retarded? You are a total demonic b*itch-no wonder your name is Crawford-and my child is not my "birth" child stupid, I had her alone and kept her, so scuz bag losers like you couldn't get their hands on her.
Recent comments about Adoption Advantage
I have sat back and watched adoptive parents slander our agency's name for some time now. It is really sad because I need to be working on finding a match and making adoptions happen for these people, but now I am reduced to spending a good portion of my day surfing the internet to defend myself.
Many of the statements that have been made about us by prior clients are listed as anonymous so I can't answer to every statement but some of the statments I can answer to because I know who you are.
Thank you, Amy, for being brave enough for at least listing your name. I will start with you first. It is true that you have had to wait a long time for a baby and have had three failed matches as you listed in your story. We are always very upfront with clients when they sign up with us and explain that birth mothers do have a right to change their mind about an adoption. Everyone on our staff works very hard to make these placments go through, but sometimes there is just nothing we can do. Any adoption professional will agree. Your last failed placement was particularly heart breaking because you did travel for so long, but that is adoption. You got to talk to this birthmother before she delivered and you felt good about her placing as well-or at least that is what you told our caseworker. The caseworker in this case put in countless hours with this birth mother and even went to her house (in a terribly dangerous part of TN) at night and banged on her door trying to get the birth mother to face her. She also left countless messages on her phone attempting to counsel with her. Molly is one of our finest caseworkers and I feel she did everything possible to make this placement work for you.
I am totally fine with clients who want to tell their story about Adoption Advantage, but please remember to include all details such as the fact that you are gender specific. We always tell clients that when they are gender specific that the adoption process will take much longer. You are very close to being matched because you are the only couple on our list for what you want. So please hang in there, you will get a child. As far as not calling you after it happened: We have had clients in your situation who get mad at us for calling and clients who get mad at us for not calling. It seems that no matter what I have my staff do, someone is always mad. My approach is to give you a while to work through some of your grief and then to call and check on you. However, you know that anyone in our staff is available for you and you are welcome to pick up the phone and call us for support if you want it.
Katie-I believe you are listed as anonymous, but I know it is you because you are the only client I have threatened to sue. However you left out part of your story as well. I do not have a problem with you telling truthful things about our agency, but you have contacted several clients and have told them, or written false information about us. If you continue to do that I have no other choice but to bring legal action against you. Please tell your story-but tell the truth. The fact is you signed up with our agency and got a baby very fast, I believe it was less than 3 months. It took a bit longer than normal to finalize your adoption because of some legal issues regarding your case that the agency had no control over. However your adoption was finalized. The other statements that you have made regarding the birth mother of your child and other statements are false. Those are the things that I asked you to discontinue saying; not truthful things that happened in your case.
Looking for Hope-I am sorry I do not know who you are. I am sorry that you have had to wait so long. However, I can tell you that we show all of our families many times a month and your turn will come and hopefully soon. It is true that we do not require the funds up front. Families can pay the funds up front and if they do then they recieve a 10% waiver of fees. So it is the client's option. I do find it hard to believe that you have not talked to a caseworker or me in a year and a half. We do keep notes on every client and I do not have a client who has not talked to us in a year and a half. Again, you are always welcome to pick up the phone and ask for me or our director, Ed. We will be more than happy to talk to you. I urge you to call us so we can discuss why it has been so long and you have not been offered a match. For instance I wonder if the criteria that you set is making it difficult to find a match for you? Please remember that we first have to meet your criteria and then find a birth mother who is willing to match with you. Perhaps some updating on your portfolio would help? So, again I urge you to call and talk to us. Posting on this site is not going to help you and is only contributing to the fears that all adoptive parents have and I cannot help you unless you talk to me.
David-I do know who you are and I welcome anyone to call licensing as well. You can call Shirley Preston in the Little Rock office and Debbie Childress in the Tennessee office. I will be happy to provide those numbers for you. These ladies have been working with us since we have been licensed and know our history so please make sure you talk to someone in DHS who has the correct information. As far as calling other adoption agencies and attorneys in the state: Adoption is a highly competitive field. While we are not in the habit of saying bad things about other agencies there are many who will. Adoption Advantage has been very successful in placing children in the state of Arkansas and many small agencies have stopped their domestic program because they cannot recruit the number of birth mothers that we do. We spend a lot of advertising dollars to recruit these birthmothers that other agencies and attorneys are not willing to spend. We also work 24/7 to take care of them and many agencies and attorneys are not willing to do that either. Of course those same agencies would love to have your business so be careful who you get information from or it could cause you to lose out on a very good situation.
I appreciate all of the potential clients checking in to us. It is always my desire to give you factual, up to date information. However please be aware that usually people who post on the internet are usually people who are angry and hurt. Much of the time, in adoption, when a birth mother changes her mind a client becomes very angry. Since they cannot get to the birth mother, then the target is us. It is very unfortunate because I have a wonderful staff and we all work very hard to make adoptions happen.
We are not a "scam". We have been practising for 16 years and have placed close to 400 children. We are licensed in two states and if there was so much bad against us, that was true, then why would we keep getting our license renewed?
And finally, thank you to the few people who took enough time out of their day to take up for us. I welcome and encourage anyone to email or call me if they would like for me to answer any questions. My number is 501-376-7778.
Sincerely,
Donna Gail Webb