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Adoption Network
(14 votes)
Adoption Network
Phone: 1 800-351-5867Address:
32392 Pacific Coast Highway Suite 100
Laguna Beach, CA 92677
40 user reviews
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Reviews
a positive experience
We adopted twice with ANLC, in 2003 and 2005. Both times we were matched almost immediately with wonderful birthmom/birthparents. In the first adoption our birthmom spent the last 2 months of her pregnancy in their housing, and ANLC handled the legal stuff as well. Everything went about as smoothly as possible.
Our 2nd adoption was much more difficult because it was out of state (we live in CA, the baby was born in WA). ANLC referred us to an awful agency called A Child's Dream (ACD). The adoption was successful, but we remain upset that ANLC had us use ACD who treated us and the birthparents awfully. We got stuck in WA state for 25 days, in part because of ACD's incompetence. We're quite disappointed that ANLC would not agree to stop using ACD.
The primary task of ANLC is to match you, and at least in our case, they did this very well. Looking at the post above, i know that our birthmom was offered counseling, and we have a very open adoption with her -- we fly her down to visit on average of 3 x per yr, and we are hoping that our younger daughter's bm comes and visits soon too. ANLC very much encouraged us to be open to openness in our adoptions, and i'm so glad we are. Good for our birthparents, daughters and ourselves..
update with good news
I talked with ANLC the other day, and was told that they have stopped using A Child's Dream (ACD). I am grateful that they no longer refer their clients to ACD and thank ANLC for making this change.
hello
Hi I am considering ANLC and was wondering did it cost more than thirty thousand?
ANLC costs
Our first adoption total costs came to about 25k, of which 16k went to ANLC for being matched, and 3.5k for legal fees. We also chose to support our wonderful birthmom during the last couple months of her pregnancy in ANLC's apartment, which cost about another 2.5k. Another 1k was spent on lawyers we used prior to ANLC (which you wouldn't have). Another 2k or so for home study and post adoption visits from social worker. So, if not for supporting our birthmom for the last couple of months of her pregnancy and having a false start with other lawyers, our costs would've been 21.5k -- but there is usually something that drives up your cost at least a little bit.
Our 2nd adoption was much more costly and difficult. Again there was the 16k to ANLC. But we were matched out of state (A Child's Dream, who were awful and based in Poulsbo, WA) and ended up having to pay over 10k to an agency up there. We were stuck in WA state for almost a month waiting for all of the paperwork for our homestudy, interstate stuff, etc to be completed. We had to stay in hotels, rent a furnished apartment, there were flights to be paid for, etc etc.. All in all this adoption cost us almost 40k.
Our advice is to be sure that all of your homestudy stuff is totally complete before getting matched (when we were matched in our 2nd adoption, we thought we had a month before she was due. She went into labor the next day!). If possible, try to adopt within your state. Talk to ANLC about this; it could be that even if you are from a non-Calif state, if you adopt through them in Calif, it might keep costs under control. What was horrible in our 2nd adoption was having to hire the WA agency, who ANLC referred us to, and we felt ripped off by them (not ANLC).
We started off thinking we going to find our birthmom ourselves but quickly became uncomfortable with doing that; maybe we would've spent a lot less than ANLC's 16k but maybe we would've kept burning through money with nothing to show for it.
Best of luck,
Dan