Review by adoptivemommy submitted on September, 15, 2009 at 09:11 AM
Adoption Details:
Child's Age: 0y 0m
Start Date: Sep 2008
Status: Finalized
Completion Date: Jan 2009
Time Until Placement: 4 months
Type: Semi-Open, Domestic, Interstate
Special Needs: Yes
Child from Orlando, Florida, United States
Pros: The homestudy worker Susan Major was wonderful to work with. So friendly and helpful!
Cons: Lots of problems
Originally fees were to be $16K. Agency contacted us with possible match and said fees would be $17K. We agreed and then later they told us we were matched and fees would be $19k-$20K. I expressed my concern about the fees continually going up and they assured me that they would NOT be more then the $20K. The fees ended up being closer to $25K when you include the homestudy and application fees. They basically said that if we wanted to finalize our adoption we had to pay the $25K. :(
On the day the baby was born nobody from the agency met with us at the hospital. I knew that they would not be meeting us but it did cause some problems. Hospital was not aware of the letter sent by the agency stating that the birthmother wanted us to be treated as bio parents in regards to visiting the baby and visiting hours. The staff was not really willing to work with on this because none of them seen this letter that was in the file. :(
After the placement we were told that we should send 8-10 pictures at each interval. We did that and then later on we were told that they really meant 20 pictures at each interval and that we had better send them. I did not like the way this was handled. Very unprofessional.
Another issue we had with them was that the birthmother was on medicaid and we believe that medicaid should have been responsible for the medical bills. For whatever reason the bills were sent to us. We were told to pay them upfront and to get reimbursed from our insurance company. This turned out to be a HUGE ordeal and we still have not received all the money. The staff was not very helpful in helping us recover that money.
I will say that when I contacted the attorney in the Tampa office she seemed to take my concerns very seriously and did what she could to help me resolve some of the issues. And hopefully she has worked with her staff so that these issues do not come up again in the future.
