It is 7,500 miles from here to Ethiopia. In this land once ruled by kings I search for two special children with eyes like mine. Join me as I take this long walk down the path of international adoption. There are sure to be twist and turns, some hills and some valleys, some laughter and some tears before I reach the destination.
I feel like Gladney really "has it all"... I chose them because they had an excellent reputation in domestic and international adoption, but I got the whole package- they do humanitarian work and Bright Futures Camp, their homes and childcare is excellent, and their costs are very reasonable. Plus, their wait times are shorter than some (right now, they are still saying 3-5 months for referral.)
After a bad experience with the agency we used during our first adoption ethical reputation was our primary concern in choosing an agency to work with this time.
We really wanted an agency that had been doing adoptions in Ethiopia for a long time and had done many. We adopted our son when there were still only 6 agency choices. When we started the process to adopt our daughter we considered using an agency that had shorter wait times. But then I had to rethink that--faster certainly is not better--I wanted to know that my agency knew what they were doing and that they were ethical and understood the ins and outs. The wait times wiht the established agencies are certainly longer (We waited 37 weeks for our referral of a baby girl) but the peace of mind is worth the longer waits.
When I started the process, there were only 4 agencies working in Ethiopia (WHFC, CHSFS, AAI, and AFAA). I wanted one with a reputation for high ethics and humanitarian work. Three of the four at the time had pretty good reputations for both things. Also, a friend who used one of the other agencies for her 4th adoption told me that WHFC would be much better for me as a first time adopter because of their customer service and hand-holding. So, I went with WHFC.
Hi Valarie -- It was hard to answer this, because my #1 answer was "ethics." That could be part of reputation, but it had nothing to do with referral from a friend, but more about analyzing the agency's structure, etc. The other answer also would be the agency's stability and longevity in Ethiopia. So... hard to answer!
Dawn, I think you are absolutely right. When I added reputation I was thinking ethics and should have added it separately. I also needed age of Ethiopian program. I was surprised with the high percentage of reputation votes and think they may refer to ethics. Thanks for catching that.
A lot of the factors you listed were things we looked for when choosing an agency (references, cost, length of time doing adoptions, agency location). What finally made us choose IAG was the passion with which the rep spoke about Ethiopia and the people. These ladies are just really passionate about the culture and I knew that is something that made them really special to me. After they passed all the due diligence tests, that passion is what finally sold me because I knew they would do everything they could to help us and our children.
9 comments:
I feel like Gladney really "has it all"... I chose them because they had an excellent reputation in domestic and international adoption, but I got the whole package- they do humanitarian work and Bright Futures Camp, their homes and childcare is excellent, and their costs are very reasonable. Plus, their wait times are shorter than some (right now, they are still saying 3-5 months for referral.)
After a bad experience with the agency we used during our first adoption ethical reputation was our primary concern in choosing an agency to work with this time.
We really wanted an agency that had been doing adoptions in Ethiopia for a long time and had done many. We adopted our son when there were still only 6 agency choices. When we started the process to adopt our daughter we considered using an agency that had shorter wait times. But then I had to rethink that--faster certainly is not better--I wanted to know that my agency knew what they were doing and that they were ethical and understood the ins and outs. The wait times wiht the established agencies are certainly longer (We waited 37 weeks for our referral of a baby girl) but the peace of mind is worth the longer waits.
Best of luck to you.
When I started the process, there were only 4 agencies working in Ethiopia (WHFC, CHSFS, AAI, and AFAA). I wanted one with a reputation for high ethics and humanitarian work. Three of the four at the time had pretty good reputations for both things. Also, a friend who used one of the other agencies for her 4th adoption told me that WHFC would be much better for me as a first time adopter because of their customer service and hand-holding. So, I went with WHFC.
Hi Valarie -- It was hard to answer this, because my #1 answer was "ethics." That could be part of reputation, but it had nothing to do with referral from a friend, but more about analyzing the agency's structure, etc. The other answer also would be the agency's stability and longevity in Ethiopia. So... hard to answer!
Dawn, I think you are absolutely right. When I added reputation I was thinking ethics and should have added it separately. I also needed age of Ethiopian program. I was surprised with the high percentage of reputation votes and think they may refer to ethics. Thanks for catching that.
A lot of the factors you listed were things we looked for when choosing an agency (references, cost, length of time doing adoptions, agency location). What finally made us choose IAG was the passion with which the rep spoke about Ethiopia and the people. These ladies are just really passionate about the culture and I knew that is something that made them really special to me. After they passed all the due diligence tests, that passion is what finally sold me because I knew they would do everything they could to help us and our children.
#1 Ethical reputation
#2 The chance that we'd information on a future child (sibling) to be surrendered by the same birth mother
i answered humanitarian aid but really my choice was based on ethics. I would have preferred this option
carol
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