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
Wow, I just don’t even know where to begin so I’ll just start from the very beginning. We were married in 2000 and began trying to conceive 6 months before our wedding when our daughter turned 2. We thought that three years apart would be a wonderful distance in age between two siblings. Little did we know that 5 years later our journey would take on a new direction. After being diagnosed with PCOS myself, my husband being diagnosed with poor semen mobility, 2 years of infertility medications and 3 failed inseminations we were devastated that we may never complete the family we longed for. Desperate to fulfill our dreams we started mentioning adoption every month or so. We always thought adoption was a wonderful thing but the whole process scared us. Okay, scared is an understatement, it terrified us completely. First and foremost, what if we decided on an open adoption and the birthparents came back to reclaim there child? What if were never chosen? How would we pay for the expenses? What if we couldn’t trust the person who would be helping us locate our child? These questions always came up every time we thought about choosing this route. We decided to try international adoption because we felt at least the birth family can’t come and take our baby from us. Big mistake. We lost almost $6,000 trying the international route and at that point we were about to through our hands up. That is, until we stumbled across the web site of Adoption Consultants Inc.
The thing that first caught our eye was that they were rated AAA with the BBB, which is the highest possible rating. We then began emailing Cathy Mantell who runs the company almost none stop with questions about adoption. Not about her company, but about adoption in general. And there was not one time we didn’t hear back from her and have our questions answered. We were really impressed that she was willing to talk with us, even though we never mentioned we were interested in working with her. We had contacted several other agencies and such asking questions, and always felt like we needed to contract with them. We always felt pressured and uncomfortable asking questions. But not with Cathy. She was very compassionate and we hardly even had to ask questions, as she was full of information about the adoption process and talked freely about it. We kept on and off contact with her for about 4 months or so. Never once in our conversations did we feel any pressure to contract. Cathy always asked if there was anything she could do to help us or if there were any questions that she could answer.
Finally, we took a huge leap of faith and contracted with Cathy and Adoption Consultants, Inc. January of 2005. As soon as we did we became very anxious. We were scared to death we would never complete our family and even became paranoid that our profile wouldn’t appeal to anyone. One day I spoke with a woman from another adoption organization and she critiqued our profile. She told me I should remove photos of our daughter enjoying herself in play activities, such as one of her skating at Disney on Ice, a family activity we enjoyed yearly. She said by including these photos in our profile, we were rubbing our daughter’s happiness and our ability to engage in fun activities with our daughter in a birthmother’s face. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was horrified and absolutely crushed hearing this. I thought my profile was a complete disaster after speaking with this woman and hearing what she had to say. So we emailed Cathy. It must have been somewhere between 11:30-midnight. We wanted to know her personal opinion about our profile and asked her if she would take another look at it and give us a call. Not expecting to her from her until that Monday or Tuesday, we were shocked when the phone rang and on the other side was Cathy! She told us she had just read our email. She could tell we were upset from what we had heard and wasted no time in getting back to us. She said if we liked she could go over our profile with us page by page and discuss our concerns. We were like, what? So there we were, page by page, deciding on where to add more pictures or be more descriptive, etc…etc… By the time our phone call was over we had a whole new outlook and excitement for our adoption journey, and we felt reassured about our profile. We were so glad we called Cathy. She always made us feel better!
Throughout our wait Cathy would keep in contact with us. We became extremely confident that we would have a successful adoption and began telling others about Cathy and Adoption Consultants, Inc. About 7 or 8 months into the contract we decided to “freeze” our contract due to personal circumstances, but had told Cathy in a month or so we planned on “unfreezing” it. At the of November 2005 we received an email from Cathy stating she knew we were on “freeze” status, but that she had a situation she felt would be a good fit for our family and would we like some more information. We replied back that we’d like more info and after reading about the situation decided we would like to be presented to that birth mom. The first week of December 2005 Cathy contacted us again and told us she had driven out to meet this birth mom and had sat with her while she was looking through profiles and that she really liked us. We were at the top of her three choices. Hearing that news made us completely numb. We almost didn’t believe what we were hearing and then stammered out a “really?” Cathy asked if we would like to have a phone conference with her. We agreed and on December 11, 2005 around 7:30pm we talked with our son’s birth mom for the first time! The whole day we were nervous and Cathy kept reassuring us that everything would be fine, to just be ourselves and know that she would be on the phone with us as well. Knowing that made it so much easier and the conversation with our son’s birth mom couldn’t have gone better. After talking for a bit we hung up and Cathy stayed on the phone with her. Shortly after Cathy called us, asked us how we felt about the call and the situation and then said “She wants you to be her family.” We will never forget the feelings we had at that very moment. We were excited, nervous, scared. So many emotions all at once was so overwhelming. Our birth mom was almost 5 months pregnant so we had 4 more months to go. Cathy kept in constant contact with us and our birth mom all the way through. Cathy made all of the arrangements for our birth mom and made sure all of us were comfortable with everything every step of the way. At one point our birth mom’s living situation changed and Cathy jumped right in and helped us to resolve it.
Originally we were scared about the thought of open adoption. But after talking with our birth mom everything just fit into place naturally and we stayed in constant contact with her. We talked at least once a week and traveled from WA to CA to visit and meet her for her birthday. During that first visit we had a 3D ultrasound. Our birth mom was very open with everyone about her adoption plans and told everyone that we were the parents and that she was just carrying our baby for us. What a remarkable, remarkable lady. Our son was born May 10, 2006 and we were there for his birth. My husband cut the cord and held him first. Our son’s birth mom left all decisions up to us on his care and where he would stay at the hospital. Cathy came to visit us the next day and spent a lot of time making sure our birth mom was okay and that we were doing well. She also took lots of pictures and e-mailed sent them to us in an online photo album, which was so nice to receive. We spent the next week with our son’s birth mom and then began the long drive back to WA.
To this day we continue to keep in touch with our son's his first mommy, but with Cathy as well. Cathy continues to check in with us to make sure we are all doing well. We are so very thankful we put all of our trust in Cathy because we truly believe our family would not be complete without her! Cathy was absolutely wonderful. She was always there when we had a question or a concern. She was always responsive to our calls, and she never made us feel uncomfortable about asking questions or sharing our concerns. We simply wouldn’t recommend anyone else to help complete a family through adoption but Cathy and Adoption Consultants, Inc! We feel so strongly about her and her company. She is fantastic! We fully support Cathy in all that she does and in all that she is. She’s truly an amazing lady and we are so very thankful she had a hand in completing our family!
Cathy - Thank you again for helping us in completing our family! Words will never be enough to thank you for the gift you have given us. We mean every word in our testimonial... You are amazing and you do amazing work. Without you we truly believe we wouldn't have the baby that was meant to be our son! We adore you!!!! You are a true blessing to all those you touch! May God bless you the way you have blessed so many others!
Forever Grateful,
Ryan, Michelle, Mikayla and Kaden
- Port Orchard, WA
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