If you are looking at private adoption, I recommend that you would begin with a home study. As Amy from Connecting Hearts says, "No matter where you go, a home study is always the first step!" A home study would be required for newborn, foster, or international adoptions.

Once we started the Home Study process, we worked on our profile book to market ourselves to birth mothers. Nicholas decided to tackle this on his own, but we did include Our Chosen Child in our list of partners as they help with the marketing of potential adoptive parents.

With Amy, we benefitted from her Home Study and her incredible network of contacts in the field.

Nicholas and I started by reaching out to two of the attorneys recommended by Amy. We were working with a third attorney when we thought we had a match with a birth mother, but ultimately, our final match came through one of Amy's contacts that we had not previously reached out to. If you are going to work with multiple professionals (which seemed to be common practice), please disclose this information.

Bear in mind that most of the partners listed on this site are Florida based and the adoption laws vary by state.

I was well prepared for the costs and paperwork. While we knew it was fairly common, we did not think that we would have a failed adoption.

We also had to address the subject of race. Ultimately, we decided to be open to both genders and races, but there are huge implications of those choices.

It was roughly 9 months between the completed home study and when we took our son home. It was another 3 months before the adoption was finalized. That time frame includes the failed adoption as well. Our experience may not be typical.

This is always a sensitive subject. Amy prepared us for the ballpark figures for legal fees and living expenses for the birth mother. There were additional costs associated with the failed adoption that we were not able to recuperate. The final statement from the adoption attorney for Sebastian was in line with what Amy told us.

At the time, Nicholas and I both worked for companies that had adoption benefits. Disney covers all adoption expenses, and some of our friends employed by Disney have benefitted from this.

I have also included a link on the partners page for helpusadopt.org. They offer grants to those hoping to adopt.