Do your research. {Choosing an adoption agency}

If you are thinking of adopting whether domestically or internationally, please, please, please do your research. With all the news/controversy floating around about possible changes in the Ethiopian adoption process, questions about how ethical Ethiopian adoptions have been posed. There have been posts about adoption opening the door to child trafficking, agencies stealing babies, etc. The one thing that has kept Chris and I strong through all of the questions is the very first decision we made after deciding to adopt – choosing our adoption agency.
When we decide to buy a car, we do online research, read reviews, talk to other who own that particular make of car and we take it for a test drive. Deciding who will be responsible for protecting your child and your family is a much bigger decision and should be made with much care. I believe that choosing your agency is the most important decision that adoptive parents make to ensure that their adoption process is ethical. Choosing an adoption agency is not the time to penny pinch or to be impatient. Your agency will be handling paperwork, making decisions, communicating with the birth family and so many other things that are critical to an ethical adoption process.
I am not claiming to be an expert on this subject. This post is simply a reminder of how important the decision is. I can only tell you how we choose and why. Before selecting our adoption agency, we researched it thoroughly. We googled and googled. We read every review we could find and any mention of the agency. Also, we talked to several other families who have used the same agency. The couple who first sparked our serious conversation about Ethiopian adoption had used our agency for both of their international adoptions and had only good things to say about them. We made our decision based on the positive online reviews and because we know local families who had used our agency in the past and had plans to use them again in the future.  Here is an article with more details on how to choose an ethical adoption agency. If you are looking to adopt from Ethiopia, I would recommend joining the Ethiopian Adoption Agency Review Yahoo group (groups.yahoo.com/group/EthiopiaAAR). Check out the archive and ask questions about the agencies you are considering.
Because we were confident in the ethics of our agency, we could rest easy as questions began swirling in the adoption community. Because our agency makes it a point to only gives us confirmed news, we knew when there was need for concern and when we could relax. Best of all, when we receive good news, we know that we can rejoice! Being able to trust our agency has made every bit of research we did worthwhile.
If a family finds a pattern of bad reviews or unethical patterns surrounding an agency and chooses to use that agency anyway, they become part of the problem. A huge part of the problem. If agencies that are facilitating unethical adoptions had no clients, they would not be able to continue. We may wait longer, we may pay more (we may not), but we want to know that everything possible was done to make our journey to Maya an ethical one. Please, please, please do your research. Please.
Stepping off my soapbox now.
-Jenn