Adoption Consultants, Inc.
Birth Parent Line:
1-800-605-4588
(1-800-605-4LUV)
Adoptive Parents:
(818) 766-2222
Testimonials
Adoption Consultants, Inc.
E-mail: info@adoptionconsultantsinc.com
Our story began almost 5 years ago when we were finally told that adoption would be our only option to build our family. Lori found an ad in our local newspaper for an agency that was nearby, so we attended one of their free information sessions. We were shown a mountain of statistics and promised a child. Since we were new to this whole experience, and very excited, we didn’t notice all of the hidden costs that were building. After 3 months of paperwork and 4 mandatory (expensive) adoption courses, we were finally ‘in the books’. We were very excited and anxious. Every few months, we would call the agency to find out what was going on only to find out that our Social Worker had left and passed our case to someone else, or ‘someone will get back to us’, or some other story. We were getting very frustrated. We were unaware that we were one of about a hundred families waiting for a baby.
When our 2 year contract was up, we decided not to renew. We were very frustrated and down until a friend told us of another local agency that only took on a maximum of 20 families. We were very excited again. This was an advertising agency run by two women with over 12 years experience. We were immediately presented to birthmothers all over the country which was very exciting, but…. they all seemed to have serious financial and/or other requirements or just dropped out of sight after a few days. We quickly learned that this Agency was very poor in screening the birthmothers. After about a year and a half, we were finally matched with a birthmother in Texas in her sixth month. This one seemed perfect at first, but…. each month her expenses seemed to climb. Our agency told us there was nothing we could do. We were just told “there are laws that protect the birthmother”. In fact, the whole time during our match, we were getting conflicting and/or poor advice. After three months of frustration and astronomical living expenses, the birthmother decided to keep her baby. Lori and I were heartbroken! We felt very frustrated, sad and defeated! This is when we realized that years of running an agency does not make up for poor judge of character and common sense! At this point, Lori had just about given up on the idea of adopting a baby. I had my serious reservations, but I wanted to give it one last try.
This time I did extensive research and read numerous testimonials until I found Cathy Mantell and Adoption Consultants, Inc. After several conversations with Cathy, we knew we finally found someone who could help us with our adoption plan the way we wanted it, very cautiously! She was very sympathetic with our story and told us she would do all she could to assist us in our adoption pursuit. She presented us with several situations over the next year and always reassured us that it was okay to be cautious. "There are always going to be women with unplanned pregnancies who need placements,” she would say if we felt maybe a particular situation wasn't quite the right one for us, but we were afraid to turn it down for fear there might not be another. Cathy always reminded us not to accept a situation that did not feel right for us and that we were not comfortable accepting for any reason. She never pressured us in any way. Well, our ideal situation did present itself! A birthmother who was due in just 3 weeks and with very little living expenses! Lori and I decided to take a chance with this one. Cathy was there for us the whole time, guiding us through all the necessary next steps and making sure we were kept informed of any new information as it arose. Any question, problem or concern, Cathy was always available to us, even after hours, and able to help. She always had very good and sound advice to any question or concern we posed. She was there to guide us all the way through the process, all the way up through and beyond our return home. What seemed to be so far out of reach for so long was finally here! We couldn't believe it!
When we got the call our Birthmother was delivering, we made plans right away to come out to California. Cathy helped us in making all the necessary arrangements. She made sure we arrive safely. She arranged for the social worker to meet our Birthmother at the hospital to sign her termination papers. Our Birthmother ended up leaving the hospital before we arrived, so we met our son for the first son at the agency Cathy had brought in to take care of the legal paperwork. How amazing it was to see our son for the first time! Words cannot express our we were feeling! We were so elated and overwhelmed at this precious gift! We finally had our child! A child we had doubted many times would ever arrive, but he did, and thanks to Cathy!
Our Birthmother wanted to meet us so a meeting was arranged at the agency. Cathy drove down to meet with Lori and I and to meet our son Kevin! We spent a couple of hours together visiting. Cathy asked us how we were feeling about meeting our Birthmother. We were so nervous, not knowing exactly what to say to our birth parents or how to behave. We were on cloud nine with our new baby son, but our happiness was also tempered knowing our birth parents were going through a very difficult time. Cathy sensed our apprehension and although she was preparing to return to her office, she volunteered to accompany us to our meeting to help pave the way for as smooth a meeting with our birth parents as one could possibly hope for. Having Cathy present for this meeting was wonderful and really helped to calm our anxiousness and nerves. Her support during this time was essential to us. So we headed off to the agency for the meeting and indeed Cathy did take the lead in the meeting, making sure everyone was comfortable and all questions were addressed and answered. The meeting went great and Cathy took lots of photos of the Birthmother and her family with the baby and with us. Pictures which we will always treasure. We are so happy we had the chance to meet with our Birthmother. It will be nice to be able to share this story with Kevin one day when he is older and can understand. We are sure he will find it very reassuring to know how much she loves him and how difficult it was for her to choose an adoptive placement for him. We will always remember her tears when we met, but she left our meeting reassured as to how loved and cherished Kevin would always be in our family.
A new, healthy baby boy! We believed we would be in good hands when we signed with Cathy and her company and indeed we were! After everything we had previously been through prior to finding Cathy, we had serious doubts we were ever going to become parents. Because of Cathy and Adoption Consultants, Inc., our dream of becoming parents has come true! (And it is far better than we had ever dreamed it would be!!!) As we hold our son in our arms, we cannot thank Cathy enough for all that she did and all of her support which we felt throughout the process. We have returned to Cathy for our second placement! So hopefully by reading our story, you will decide to trust her with your adoption plan as we did and do! Thank you, Cathy!
Lori, John and Kevin
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
 | ||||||
