Don't Listen to Critics, Strive for High Achievement

In every difficult situation is potential value. Believe this, then begin looking for it. Norman Vincent Pealespan 


I was reading a blog post the other day about adoptive families and a prospective adoptive mother was commenting about some of her frustration as she has to endure insensitive comments from others who either say something stinging to them unintentionally or from those who have an agenda to keep regarding infertility and adoption. As an adoptive father of two myself I have endured some of these same things and I know they can be very painful.


The adoptive process is a true journey of the heart. The reasons that have brought couples and families to make this decision are numerous but in most cases it has been a refiners fire of sorts. Sometimes it seems like life is preventing you from achieving your goals. You define your goals right, you make them aligned with you values, you plan the time to work on them and then … something unexpected happens. Those who have never felt this pain or have never had to endure the many treatments and humbling procedures to get pregnant naturally will never fully appreciate the complexity of adoption.


For those who can plan when they want to get pregnant and have complete control over that part of their life it is a completely different ball game and the rules that govern it are not in anyway understood completely by those who cannot play. In the words of my brother in law who once told my wife as she shared her frustration and amazement with him about our infertility "I have the power to do it and so I do" with all the compassion of a police officer as he gives you a speeding ticket. It's not his fault he just can't relate to our circumstances and nor can we with him and that's okay. But it still hurts just the same.


In what seems a lifetime ago before I had the pleasure of working in the field of adoption I worked as a physical education teacher and coach for some 100 plus teams and over 1000 athletes for a small school in claifornia. I have coached youth from preschool age to high school age. I have had the honor to work with some very talented athletes and teams over my career. I never thought I would find something as fulfilling and as rewarding as helping young men and women reach their personal best in life through sport. I looked forward to getting up and over to school each day and relished the opportunity to work late after school with my teams.


I was wrong, working in the field of adoption is something that gets my heart racing everyday and I am excited to get into my office to begin helping adoptive families reach their adoption goals through our agencies birth mother program. The same fire that I had back then as a coach still burns brightly today and i am grateful for the opportunity. As I was thinking back to that time in my life I realized that some of the same struggles that I and my players went through could loosely apply to adoptive families and birth mothers.


One of my favorite quotes of all time and something I used to share with my teams after a tough loss or when I felt they need some encouragement was a section from the speech given by Theodore Roosevelt in 1910 referred to as "The Man in The Arena" which many of you may be familiar. Here is a quote form that speech that was later added to his book entitled Citizen in the Republic.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."


In my opinion, those of us who have adopted, are trying to adopt, or are contemplating adoption have had this experience to a greater or lesser degree. Adoption is a risky adventure that requires families to be valiant and sometimes there are failures as we go through the adoptive process and we can come up short time and time again but remember it is while you are daring greatly . The critic will always be there in some form or another but they do not count. The credit belongs to you as you spend yourselves in a worthy cause daring greatly and in the end the gift of a new addition to your family is your reward.

How Do Medical and Legal fees Effect Overall Placement Fees?

Medical and legal fees can add substantially to the overall cost of a domestic newborn adoption. Placement fees for an average adoption in the U.S. are somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000.

Medicare coverage for a birth mother cannot transfer from state to state.  Therefore any placement done inside of the state where you service provider is licensed can cost between $5000 and $12,000 extra depending on the type of birth and the length of your birth mothers hospital stay.  In most cases the legal fee is minimal.

On the flip side of that are placements done outside of the state where your service provider is licensed.  In these cases medicare coverage is intact and will most likely cover the bulk of your birth mothers and babies hospital stay barring any major complications.

However, since it is done outside of the state where your service provider is licensed an attorney in that state is hired to handle the documentation of the adoption.  Their fee can range from $4000 to $8000 depending on the state and the attorney.

In both cases these fees are added to the placement fee along with any confinement or post placement fee the birth mother is given by her agency.  In most cases this runs $1500 to $2500.  This fee helps a birth mother to get back on her feet after the birth.

The total average placement fee including medical or legal and post placement with our agency for an African American baby are approx. $24,000 and for a biracial placement approx. $30,000.

When talking with service providers find out what the total fee required is including those extras.  it can make a difference when selecting a service provider to work with.

Who Needs Protection?

In the world of adoption service providers it is not always the case that your adoption funds are going to be fully protected in case of an interruption to your adoption.  Adoptions are interrupted for several reasons but the most common is when a birth mother changes her mind.

It is a very difficult decision for any birth mother.  Most of the time this decision is made after the baby is born.  So for prospective adoptive families it comes as a shock.  Birth mothers of course have every right to change their minds and as an agency we support that decision when it does not put the child at jeopardy.

But for families and adoption service providers it is one of the risks involved in adoption.  The Adoption Center of Choice handles this situation two different ways.  Both will give families the peace of mind that their adoption funds or the money they have spent up to the point will not be lost.

As an adoptive father myself of two beautiful little girls who did not have that safety net when we adopted it really is a big deal.  Adoption is risky enough without having to worry about your funds being lost.

For any placement that is interrupted for any reason we offer our famillies the ability to have their funds rolled over into another placement situation until a placement is made.  For Biracial and Cauacasian placements we also offer a refund within 90 days of the interruption.

Either way you are guaranteed to be placed or get your money back regardless of any problem that may come up during the process.  I have spoken with many families that have lost up to $30,000 to a failed placement. We guarantee that will not happen with our service.

One thing that adoptive families should keep in mind is that many agencies will allow you to have your profile brought back into their birth mother pool and continue to advocate with their birth mothers on your behalf working hard to find you another match.  Very few however will do it without penalty of total loss or a partial loss of funds.  You can start over with another birth mother but you do it from square one all over again.

Some families I have spoken to have had part of the overall funds lost as each failed adoption occurred.  So over two or three failed placement attempts their adoption budget has taken a significant hit and they no longer have the necessary resources to consider all the options they could before they began.

Adoption can be a risky venture no doubt.  But if you are considering an agency ask them about their policies regarding refunding, about failed placements, and how many birth mothers a year they anticipate they will show your profile too.  These three things can save you money and time.

If you'd like to talk about our ability to provide your family professional adoption services without any risk to you send me an email at Dave williams@theadoptioncenter.com

All but one of our five outreach cases are matched

We had five outreach cases over the weekend. Four of the five were matched with a family by Monday morning. We still have one left, an African American baby boy due in early Jan of 2010 that we are still advocating for the right family.

In addition, we have a brand new outreach case as of today 10/27/09 for a African American baby girl due in late November. Both of these cases can be found on my Outreach Website http://www.wix.com/AdoptionCenter/-Adoptive-Family-Outreach-.

For more information call Dave Williams at 801-473-9350

Creating A Profile Pool for Outreach Situations

Over the last few months you may have seen my various postings on my AdoptionVoices.com group "Prospective Adoptive Family Outreach". Because of the tremendous amount of opportunity that our active families have experienced we have depeleted our pool of famliies that are open to an African American or biracial African American placement entirely.

In June and July of this year we had enough active families that we only needed to do outreach once or twice a month. Since then our outreach case load has risen steadily with five new cases in August, and Seven in September. Now almost a week away from the end of October we have had ten outreach cases so far.

In an effort to recreate an active family pool we would like to invite any family that has a current home study done with background clearances from any other adoption service provider to forward their information to Dave Williams for immediate consideration with NO fee requirements upfront whatsoever.

Our goal is to then have an active pool of profiles that we can present to any of our birth mothers expecting a African American or African American biracial baby. For the African American placement the associated fees are then not due until two weeks before the baby is born. For our African American Biracial placement $1350.00 in fees are due at matching and the remainder two weeks before placement. In cases where delivery in immediately pending upon match all fees are due before physical placement.

All adoption fees are protected 100% by The Adoption Center of Choice in two ways. For all African American placements that are interrupted for any reason we roll your paid fees into another matching opportunity until a placement is made. For all Biracial placements we offer the same service as the African American placement plus an option for a refund within 90 days of interruption.

In creating this "profile pool" we hope that familes will recognize a great opportunity to be show cased to a large number of birth mothers with any out of pocket expense. On average a family working with us through outreach is matched within 3 months. Our latest numbers would indicate that if it took us a year to match you with a birth mother in our pool your profile will be in front of 40 - 50 different birth mothers.

What this does in essence is put the burden on our shoulders to show your profile to as many birth mothers as we can as quickly as we can. So my question is, where are you going to find an opportunity to have that done for you with no upfront fees? If you want to take advantage of this opportunity call Dave Williams directly at 801-473-9350 for more details.

Five New Outreach Opportunities For Homestudy Prepared Families to Consider

I have been posting outreach cases on AV sinceJune and I have never had five new outreach cases at one time. Outreach is when I don't have a family in my agency that I can show to a birth motherin my birth mother pool. It is a great opportunity for home study prepared families to consider. We have three African American situations and two biracial situations. I have posted information on each case on my group "Prospective Adoptive Family Outreach" on this website. We are in need of families for all five placements. Each case is unique depending on the state, legal fees, and medical fees.
These cases are all due at various times with the last due by Jan 10th 2010 and are both baby boys and baby girls with one unknown gender. If you would like to be presented on any of these situations after careful consideration please contact Dave Williams at The Adoption Center of Choice at 801-473-9350.

Current Outreach Cases

This morning I have an outreach case. It is for a full African American placement. Birth mother is expecting a boy. She is due Jan 10th of 2010. Birth father is unknown, She is 19 yrs old and has had some depression recently and is taking Zoloft as prescribed.

She is in good health otherwise and so is the baby. She has had pre-natal care since May of this year. She is delivering in Utah.

Fees are:
$16,975 placement fee
$6000 - $8000 medical fees ( no medicaid)
$2500 post placement fee

If you would like more information on this case please contact Dave Williams at he Adoption Center of Choice 801-473-9350