A few days ago, I, Steve Kirsh, of the adoption law firm of Kirsh & Kirsh, P.C. (“Kirsh & Kirsh”), met prospective adoptive parents via Zoom, who told me that they had been working with a national adoption agency, which matched them with an expectant mother. They lost $40,000 on the failed adoption, between what they paid in adoption agency fees and living expenses for the birth mother. Unlike Indiana, the state in which the adoption agency operated does not impose a dollar amount limit on living expenses. Obviously, the significant financial loss upset the prospective adoptive parents, but the agency’s lack of responsiveness throughout the process galled them. They said that unless the agency wanted more money from them, they never heard from the agency. The adoption agency did not inform them that the birth mother could not proceed with the adoption because Child Protective Services (“CPS”) had put a hold on the baby, until the adoptive parents contacted the agency after the birth mother contacted them, asking for more living expenses — AFTER she had already delivered. At that time, the adoption agency caseworker informed them that CPS had stepped in the previous weekend and that they would not be able to adopt the baby.
Under Indiana adoption law and the laws of most, if not all, states, a birth mother cannot legally commit to adoption until after she gives birth. Therefore, every prospective adoptive parent risks disappointment and financial loss, if a birth mother changes her mind and decides to parent her baby. We, at Kirsh & Kirsh, find it hard to justify the amount of money the family lost and the lack of communication. We pride ourselves on promptly responding to all inquiries about newborn adoptions and limiting the financial exposure of failed adoption opportunities. In fact, we structure our legal and adoption services fees to roll-over to subsequent adoption opportunities. Furthermore, we defer the largest amount of those fees until placement so that significant financial losses do not compound the emotional disappointment of not successfully adopting.
By the way, we, at Kirsh & Kirsh, do NOT criticize the birth mother for not proceeding with putting her baby up for adoption and recognize that a birth mother has the absolute right not to give up her baby for adoption, or more correctly, make an adoption plan for her baby.
We find it unfortunate that the national adoption agency allowed the prospective adoptive parents to suffer such a great financial loss and did not communicate better with them about the failed adoption opportunity.
If you are prospective adoptive parents looking for information about adopting a child, or are a birth mother or expectant mother and not sure how to give a child up for adoption, or, more correctly, make an adoption plan for your precious child, please contact us. We will answer your questions, without cost or obligation on your part. In other words, talking to us costs you nothing nor does it mean you ever have to communicate with us, again. We can assist you with an Indiana adoption no matter whether you live in Auburn or Newburgh, Scottsville or Gary, Huntington or Huntingburg, or any Indiana county or city in between.
We have lots of wonderful, carefully screened, loving families (married, single, Lesbian, and Gay) who cannot wait to welcome a baby into their hearts and homes and are happy to assist with living expenses to the full extent allowed by law.
You can call, text, and or email us anytime —call: 317-575-5555, text: 317-721-2030, email: AdoptionSupport@kirsh.com, or a Facebook message: https://www.facebook.com/KirshandKirsh/. We answer our office phone 24 hours a day, every single day. We try to respond to emails and text messages within minutes of receipt.
POSITIVE ADOPTION LANGUAGE DISCLAIMER: Please understand that these blog posts are written in a way to use language that people use when searching for help with their adoption plans. Unfortunately, while all of us understand what positive adoption language means, most expectant moms that come to us at first do not understand what that means. The most common search term on the Internet for expectant moms is “how do I give up my baby for adoption”. If we do not include those words in our blog posts, and instead put “how do I create an adoption plan for my baby” then our website will not show up in most expectant mom’s search results on Google.