Adoption Agency Ratings

We recently adopted through Spokane Consultants after extensively researching agency adoption vs private adoption (ie: privately hiring a non-agency social worker to do homestudy/court reports and a family law attorney for court hearings). We opted to go through Spokane Consultants, at a much higher cost, due to believing we would receive additional support through the adoption process. Didn't happen. We did not expect to have our hands-held or emotions coddled. What we did expect, for the additional cost of going through an agency, was to have the very initial meeting with the birth family facilitated by a staff member (nope), we expected a "close to birth" meeting facilitated to make sure we all were on the same page as far as adoption plan/communication (nope - note all parties do sign the standard/pre-filled 2 visits a year agreement, but assumptions of getting to go above it can be made - legally everyone is in the clear, emotionally? not so much. IMO, a responsible agency should bring all parties together and make SURE all is clear about the contact and desire/lack of desire to go above legally minimum amount of contact), and possibly a post-birth meeting facilitated to make sure all was going well (nope). Not one meeting was ever facilitated by staff, ever. Spokne Consultants is a small, local agency. They primarily work with local birth mothers and prospective adoptive couples within the state. Hosting meetings between the two parties is very VERY feasible. Questions and concerns were met with a condescending attitude and snark. The question constantly on my mind after every agency interaction was: What am I paying them extra for? We do have a beautiful baby, and for that I am thankful, but there are other ways to adopt if you don't feel the need to have any meeting facilitation, if you want to be treated with respect, and you want to avoid negativity. To give due credit, they did put us in touch with our little one's birthmother, but with some legwork, adoptive couples can find birth mothers on their own, they do NOT need an agency to find one. Basically, this agency only does what you can have done privately.