[Wannafamily]

Hi Deana,

I have never posted to the adoption thread, mainly the DE and pregnancy loss boards, but I wanted to share a story with you.

After 3 IVF cycles (one with my eggs which resulted in a miscarraige at 13 weeks, and 2 with donor eggs which resulted in a chemical pregnancy and then a negative), my DH and I decided to adopt domestically. We started talking to friends about it and quickly got referrals to agencies in our area (New England). We chose a private agency that has been around for over 20 years and places approximately 30-40 babies per year. They work with birth moms from all over the country, and really work with their adoptive families to identify what type of child (race) and birth mom situation (drug use, alcohol, unknown birth father, mental illness, etc.) each family is willing to consider and take on. As someone else mentioned, the more flexible you are, the quicker you will be matched with a birth mom. Also, our agency only has a maximum of 25 couples actively waiting to be matched at a time.

Our story is somewhat uncommon, but it seems to be happening more and more with our particular agency. We submitted our application on 12/4/2008 and completed our home study on 2/7/2009. After the final home study visit, it tooks us another couple of weeks to complete our profiles. We turned in our profile on 2/25/09 and received a call from our agency on 3/1 telling us that a birth mom had chosen us and that she had given birth to a baby girl on 2/27/09. As you can imagine, we were in complete shock, but so thankful. We had about as perfect a situation as you can get - the birth mom is 18 and very healthy. The birth father wanted nothing to do with the child and signed all the paperwork the day he could legally do so. We picked up our baby (born in the state we live in) on 3/3/2009. She is half caucasion and half hispanic and fits in with us so well (we are both caucasion, but have dark hair). Isabella Rose has been home with us for just over a week and she is the love of our lives. I was a little scared that I would have a problem bonding with her, but from the minute she was placed in my arms, I loved her with all my heart.

As I said, I know this is not the typical adoption story, but I wanted to share so that I can hopefully give others hope. If you have any questions about the agency we used (I'm not sure if they work with couples outside of New England but if they don't they may be able to recommend one to you), PM me and I'll get you the information.

I hope that everyone who is in the process of applying, completing their home stuudy, or waiting for a match is united with their little one very soon!!