10 Ways To Find An Expectant Mother Faster
The adoption process can be incredibly lengthy, no matter which route you choose. The average length of time that it takes to adopt a baby varies dramatically based on the path of the type of adoption you use, the situations you feel equipped to parent, the quality of your adoption profile, and about a million other factors. When you google it, you will find no 3rd party surveys on how long it will take, so you are at the mercy of individual experiences. It will take anywhere from 1 to 7 years to adopt a newborn domestically with an agency. And there are no facts that you can find on how long it takes to adopt self matching.
Just a quick reminder on what the three main options for private domestic adoption
Find Your Expectant Mother Through Self Matching Adoption
Self matching adoption is becoming increasingly more popular these days. Still, it is confusing because it is called so many different things depending on who you are talking to private adoption, adopting with a private attorney people often use finding a birth mother on your own, adoption self matching, adopting through a private attorney all to mean that you adopt without an agency. That doesn’t even account for calling a woman a birth mother versus an expectant mother and then all the variations from there: finding an expectant mother on your own, self matching with an expectant mother, adopting with a private attorney with an expectant mother. You can read more about adopting with a Private Attorney here.
Adopting a Baby With an Adoption Agency
An adoption agency advertises to both expectant parents and hopeful adoptive parents to attract them to become clients. They then match the two parties together based on their desired characteristics in each other. The adoption agency’s primary job is to ensure a successful adoption for both the expectant parents AND the hopeful adoptive parents. The adoption agency has two clients in the process, the expectant parents, and the adoptive parents. Their interactions with each look pretty different in the various stages of the adoption process. If you want to read more about the process, you can check out How to Adopt with An Adoption Agency.
Adoption Consultants
The most straightforward way to think about adoption consultants is that they are the hopeful adoptive parents’ agent. They only have one client in the adoption process, the adoptive parents. And their sole job is to work with several adoption agencies to determine if they have an opportunity that best fits what you are looking for in an adoption opportunity. When you work with an adoption consultant, you typically match faster as you are shown to more potential expectant families. Still, you also have to pay a few to the adoption consultants and pay the agency fees for that individual situation. So while this can be a faster route to adoption, it does cost more.
No matter the route you choose for adoption, there are some essential tips for finding an expectant mother faster. As with anything in life, you must have a strategy, plan, and support to reach your goals of finding an expectant mother more quickly. Here are a few tips to help you get started.
10 Ways To Find an Expectant Mother Faster
Have an Amazing Adoption Family Profile
Create engaging stories with video
Multiple profiles on multiple social media channels
Join Facebook groups that post opportunities
Cast a wide net, share it with everyone
Have your home study pre-approved
Be prepared with google voice, generic email address
Be prepared to talk to an EM and spot a scam
Be prepared to invest in advertising on Facebook/Instagram
Know the law and have an attorney on standby
Have an Amazing Adoption Family Profile
Having a fantastic adoption profile is essential to the overall success of your adoption journey. The expectant mother is looking for the story of what life is like in your family and what life will be like for her child in your family. If she cannot envision what life is like for this child or if the vision you paint doesn’t match what she wants, she will simply move on to the next family. This one step is the most critical factor in your overall adoption journey.
It is important to note that it is vital that you be authentic to your family and your story. The goal is not to be someone else but rather to attract an expectant mother who feels that you would be a good fit for her child. If you are not authentically yourself in all touchpoints, it will be obvious and disrupt your adoption process. You are amazing just the way you are, so just be yourself.
Because this is so important, you may be wondering what makes the perfect adoption profile. The answer is that there is no ideal adoption profile because each expectant mother is looking for something different and unique to her. But I teach a framework to help you write your perfect adoption profile to attract your expectant mother. If you want to learn more about that, click below to join my free Facebook group.
Create engaging stories with video
If a picture is worth 10,000 words, a video must be at least ten times more valuable than that. Video is an incredibly powerful tool to give an expectant mother a look into your lives. After all, the goal is to provide her with a glimpse into what life would be like with your family, and video can do that expertly.
Think about the videos you create as a way to make your written profile come to life. If you want to teach a child how to read, then create a video that shows you reading to a child. Bring your profile stories to life with your video.
While you may be tempted to make each video super polished and perfect, I would resist that urge. The ideal candid moments of life are an excellent way for her to bond with your story. I highly recommend a mix of both professional and candid as your video elements.
Be prepared with google voice, generic email address.
Keeping yourself protected from an identity perspective is important during the adoption process, even if you choose to have an open adoption. There are scammers around every corner in the adoption process, so guarding your personal information is important. If you find a real match, you can share your information with her, but I would be very cautious.
I highly recommend setting up a google voice number as it allows you to provide a phone number without giving your real phone number. Also, a generic email address like Rebecca and James adopt is a great tool as well. Both of these tools are something you can use during your entire adoption process for everything so that you can compartmentalize things too. There will be hard days in the journey ahead, and having separate email addresses and phone numbers will allow you to selectively engage so you can protect your heart when you need to.
Multiple profiles on multiple social media channels
Social media is a great place to find expectant mothers, but it is also a great place to find scammers. I highly recommend a unique profile just for your adoption. Something like Rebecca and James Adopt is a great place to start. It is important to have adoption or adopt in the title so that if she is searching for that term, you will come up with the search results. Before finalizing a name, check all the social media accounts you want to leverage to make sure it is available because you want to use the same one on Facebook, Instagram, etc.
I would not give information about where you are located specifically or your last name on this profile. The best practice is to say the state you live in but not the city. This helps to avoid scammers showing up at your door and from anyone else potentially doing that either down the road if that is not what you want.
Join Facebook groups that post opportunities
There are tons of free Facebook groups that allow you to post to prospective expectant mothers each week. These groups are great for exposure purposes, but you have to find a way to make your profile standout amongst the sea of hopeful adoptive parents. That is why you need a unique profile. Join my program here to learn how to make a great profile.
Cast a wide net, share it with everyone
While sharing your profile on social media is excellent, you cannot stop there. Your job is to share your hope of adopting a baby with everyone and for them to share it with everyone. As weird as it might sound, you need to share it with your friend, family, coworkers, doctor, dentist, church, all the business you frequent. Every single place you can think of to share it, do it. Then ask them to do the same.
It is also important that create something that is easily shared so that others can share your information with expectant mothers considering adoption. Think of a printable profile, a business card with an email address or website on it, etc. the goal is to give them something that can be carried around and passed on. If you want some free templates jump into the Facebook group.
Have your home study pre-approved
While it will be so exciting to rush right into making your profile and sharing it, you need to be legally prepared to accept the placement of a child. The home study process itself can take several months to complete. A lot of that time, you will be waiting on other people to do their part, so there is no reason why you can’t be doing some of the setup things so that when you are near the end of the approval process that you can begin actively trying to find an expectant mother.
Just please do not start sharing your profile too early. It would be devastating to be picked to adopt a baby and not finalize the adoption because your home study wasn’t approved. Save yourself the heartache.
Be prepared to talk to an expectant mother and spot a scam
Once you start sharing your profile, you need to be prepared with what you will say to an Expectant mother if she should reach out to you. This can be incredibly scary. It can feel like it is more important than any first date you have been on, no disrespect to your partner. It is important to be open, honest, and genuine with any interactions. Your goal is to be yourself first and foremost, and as hard as it is, if she doesn’t like you for who you are, then it wasn’t meant to be. You would rather find out after a few conversations than after a few months.
You also need to be prepared to spot scammers because that does happen. I am not trying to scare you, but it is important to have your guard up and be cations. Always take their lead in the conversations and treat everyone with respect because you don’t know who is real or not. Always bring in your attorney to ask for verifying the pregnancy before you get too far down the road.
Know the law and have an attorney on standby
You must have an adoption attorney to finalize your adoption, but I would also recommend that you have them available to help answer questions as you go through the process. You want to eke sure that you are acting in accordance with the law at all times so that you don’t put your adoption in jeopardy.
I also highly recommend that you use your adoption attorney to talk to the expectant mothers to verify that they are pregnant and any financial needs. This keeps your relationship focused on support. It ensures that you are not breaking any laws.
Yes, it will increase your costs, but you have to weigh the cost vs. the risk and decide that is best for you. I always suggest that you use the resources you have to eliminate risk as much as possible.
Be prepared to invest in advertising on Facebook/Instagram
Sharing your message with a broader audience can also include using paid advertising to find expectant mothers considering placing their child for adoption. This is typically done on Facebook and Instagram. You must ensure that advertising is legal in your state. This is something that your adoption attorney can help you with.
As you might know, my day job is in marketing. Sharing adoption tips with you is my passion, and throughout my career, I have spent hundreds of millions of sizeable corporate advertising dollars. If this is something you are seriously considering, please reach out to me directly, and I will help you. Just drop me an email at amanda@myadoptioncoach.com
Well, there you have it, my ten ways to find an expectant mother faster no matter if you are self matching for your adoption or if you are using an adoption agency or adoption consultant. I hope you put these tips into action. If you have any questions, jump into the Facebook group so we can help you.
Rember, you can do it, and I have your back
-Amanda
Hi, I Am Amanda
I help women build their families through adoption by giving them the step by step guide to adopt a child and support them on their journey
