Guest Author - Karen Ledbetter

Making an adoption plan is one of the most difficult decisions you´ll ever make. Use wisdom in locating an adoption professional to help you find an adoptive home for your baby.

Ask the adoption professional tons of questions and get everything in writing. Any reputable agency/facilitator/attorney will treat you with kindness, compassion, respect, and honesty.

Will you really get to select your baby´s adoptive family, or will you be pressured into "choosing" the professional´s favorite family? If you locate a family on your own, through networking or a friend/acquaintance, will the professional have a problem with that family becoming your baby´s new family? What if you change your mind about adoption, either before birth, or during the period the law allows you to revoke consent? Will the agency/attorney/facilitator respect your privacy and treat you with dignity? Or will they turn on you, call your parents, report you to social services, and have your baby taken from your arms for no obvious reason? Sadly, this has happened to birth families simply because they changed their minds about adoption.

Each state had different adoption laws, so familiarize yourself with the laws in the state where you´ll be signing adoption papers.

Ask to speak with birth parents and adoptive families the agency/attorney/facilitator has worked with in the recent past. Verify the professional´s credentials via the state adoption licensing board, the state attorney general´s office, and the Better Business Bureau. If you have Internet access, you can do this through Internet web sites and/or e-mail requests. If you don’t have a computer or Internet access, spend some quality time surfing on your local public library´s computer.

While verifying credentials on-line, stop by a few message boards for birth parents and/or adoptive parents. ABCAdoptions.com and Birthmother.org have excellent discussion boards. Get the scoop on the latest possible adoption scammers by lurking, or post questions on the appropriate board. Honest, caring, compassionate families involved with adoption tend to genuinely care about and respect one another, no matter which side of the adoption triad they "belong" to, and tend to warn one another which so-called professionals to avoid.

Avoid any adoption agency/facilitator/attorney that asks you for money to help find a family for your baby. A legitimate adoption professional never expects money from birth parents. Additionally, Reputable adoption professionals are genuinely interested in birth parents as people, and in their physical and emotional needs, always treating them with kindness and respect. You may want to reconsider working with an adoption professional that makes you like they are more interested in your producing a baby than in your personal well-being.

With a little wisdom and a lot of research, you should be able to avoid an adoption scam and locate enter into a loving adoption relationship with the family you choose to parent your baby.