North Carolina Adoption Law

One of the best things you can do when you're starting your adoption journey is surround yourself with the right team. Not only is this advice that I live by, but also the advice of our interviewee. 

Today, Kelly Dempsey, who is an adoption attorney in the state of North Carolina, Kelly shares with us some cautionary tales and gives us an overview of how you could adopt in the state of North Carolina. 

This is an episode you don't want to miss no matter what state you're adopting in. 

Amanda: Let's welcome Kelly to the show. Kelly, thank you so much for being willing to join us today.

Kelly: Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

Amanda: We would love for the audience to learn a little bit more about you before we dive into all things North Carolina adoption law.

Kelly: Sure, well, my name is Kelly Dempsey. And I think the most important thing to start with is that I'm an adoptive mom. And so I come to this work from a very personal place and a very passionate place about adoption as a means to build families and understand the impact of adoption on adoptees and families of origin. My oldest is 16 and driving a car. She was internationally adopted. And then I have a 13-year-old son who was domestically adopted. Both of those journeys were sort of the genesis of my adoption practice, which began about 15 or 16 years ago, before practicing adoption law. I was a litigator in the firm I’m in now. It’s kind of come full circle. As a young baby lawyer, I practice law at a mid-sized regional firm. And that firm has grown into a big national firm. So I practice with 1000 attorneys and 30 offices around the country, and I lead their family formation department.

Amanda: Awesome. So do you have a partnership with those other offices with adoption attorneys in other states as well? 

Kelly: We have family lawyers in other states and we will sort of assist them. I also have a partner in our Florida office who is an adoption attorney. But one of my core values as an adoption professional is that you should work with professionals. You shouldn't be dabblers because this is a really important legal process. So I don't encourage litigators to do an adoption for their niece or real estate lawyers to do an adoption for their best friend. I just think that's not a great practice, generally. So we have great resources all over the firm and across the country, in this firm, but we also rely heavily on the Academy of Adoption attorneys to find competent professionals to help. 

Amanda: Yeah, and that is so critically important. Just last week, I was having a conversation with Tim, an adoption attorney in Colorado, and he was sharing one of what I would call a horror story; when you don't have someone that is licensed and specializes in adoption in specific. But so that's why we are super thankful to learn from you about all things North Carolina adoption law. Because we know that adoption laws vary so much by state. It is really important that where the adoptive parents live, as well as where the birth parents live, you understand the adoption laws in each state and are complying with both. So I'd love it if you could share just kind of a broad overview of adoption law in North Carolina with us.

Kelly: Sure, I would say that North Carolina is a very adoption-friendly state with a fairly benign process. Meaning it requires not so much of the parties involved and creates a process that can run pretty smoothly, in most cases. Now, of course, there are the exceptions. But our adoption process begins with the placement authority of the primary birth mother, if she is married, or a part of an intact couple, we would consider both biological parents to have placement authority. But, in most cases, we are dealing with an expectant mother who's making the plan. And so after delivery, she may sign a consent under North Carolina law. We don't have any waiting period, but I would say that most practitioners, myself included, like to wait at least 24 hours following delivery and prefer more like 48 hours to allow her to rest and recover and sort of come down off all of the insanity of delivering a baby. Your body just needs a minute. And so, it's not a time I would encourage anybody to take any significant life-changing action. They need sleep. They need to be surrounded by people who love them, they need to hold the baby and make sure that this is what they want and need. Thus after the signature process of the consent, the signing of the consent in North Carolina is how legal and physical custody is transferred. That can be signed in the presence of a notary. So it's not a court process. Most attorneys are notaries so the birth mother's attorney will be at the hospital in most cases, taking her consent and serving as her notary providing her with advice and counsel ensuring that she is competent and confident in her plan and ready to make the sort of legally significant decision of placement we then coordinate with the hospitals to arrange for discharge. Discharge can be directly into the care of the adoptive parents in North Carolina. There doesn't have to be an intermediary. So following discharge, we would begin both the legal process in our court and the ICPC process for interstate cases to allow the family to return home with the child. The court process in North Carolina sort of triggers several obligations. The first obligation is that the adopting family will have to do post-placement visits. The same people who did their home study will come back to their homes and make sure that they are acclimating well to parenthood, that the child is settling in well, and their needs are being met. This is the opportunity to make sure that everything's going well, that your baby is thriving in your care, and is safe. Those reports are the peek behind the curtain that the court gets into this placement to make sure that it's in the best interest of the child. So that's the first thing that is happening after the petition is filed. The second thing that's happening in most cases is that we need to deal with the birth father. In North Carolina, we typically do that by serving him with a legal notice that an adoption petition has been filed. It is a very brief notice, that says an adoption petition has been filed. You've been identified as the father and you have 30 days to file an objection. If you want to file an objection, you need to contact this court and this attorney. This attorney is typically me and most cases proceed uncontested, meaning that the birth father does not object. In some cases, he may contact me and say he wants to sign a consent. In some cases, we may never hear from him at all. If at the end of that 30 days, there's been no objection, the court will find that his consent is not necessary, by failure to file an objection. If he files an objection, then we proceed with a contested hearing. And that's an unusual but important option in terms of risk assessments. We always want to make sure that families understand what could happen. I tell all my clients that I feel like one of my primary roles is to be a doomsday planner. Like, let's figure out the absolute worst thing that could happen, and then talk about what we would do because I believe that nobody wants a surprise at this stage. And I don't want the first time they've heard any sort of risk or nuance or threat to the security of their family to be at that point. I want them to have heard it before, and to not feel surprised by what's happening. So we're dealing with the legal father as the second thing during that 90 days. Then the third thing that's happening is sort of wrapping up the paperwork and loose ends. We're ordering birth certificates, we're making sure that the court has everything they need, and we're communicating with the ICPC offices of both states to share that placement is going well and moving forward in North Carolina and adoption is required to be pending for 90 days. That is not a very long time. So the two post-placement visits are happening during that time, birthfather rights and responsibilities are being dealt with during that time, and sort of all the administrative loose ends are being dealt with during that time. In most cases, we're ready to finalize in about 90 days. And so most of our cases will finalize between day 90 and day 120. When I say they are finalized, what that means is the parental rights of the family of origin, the birth family are extinguished. The parental rights are now transferred in full to the adoptive parents. Once that happens under North Carolina law, it is as if the child had been born to them. And so that triggers several opportunities for the family. They could have chosen to change the child's name in the adoption process, they will have a new birth certificate issued listing them as the parents with the original birth certificate going under seal. It may be the first opportunity they've had to get a social security card. It's also the event that allows a family to claim the adoption tax credit. So I always tell families that we want to get that done as quickly as possible because it is sort of your finish line in this process that has been so emotionally fraught, exciting, scary, all the things. But it allows you to just exhale and focus on being a family.

Amanda: Yeah, that's awesome. So I have a couple of clarifying questions as well in the overall process. The first is, what are the requirements in the state of North Carolina? Are there requirements to work with agencies? Or are you allowed to self-match your adoption? And can you talk a little bit more about that? 

Kelly: Sure. So in North Carolina, attorneys aren't allowed to participate in the matching process. So my story always begins at the match. In North Carolina, direct placements are permitted. Agency placements are permitted but not required. Families are permitted to advertise on their own to identify opportunities. Unpaid facilitators are also permitted to assist families. 

Amanda: So when you say assist families, you’re helping them find a match? So like someone helping them with their profile, that's not considered a facilitator, or it is?

Kelly: Yeah, you can help with the match. You can offer resources and training. But if you are helping them solicit for a match, you must be licensed or unpaid, nonprofit or individual. I don't see that law being particularly well enforced. In North Carolina, in all candor, we see a lot of facilitators doing work and agencies that are not licensed in the state, but licensed in other states, helping families secure their matches. And of course, that's all reported to the court in the process and reported to ICPC. In the process, there's no smoke and mirrors, and I think it's just sort of acknowledged and moved on.

Amanda: Yeah, it's one of those fine lines. For me personally, as an adoption profile expert, I oftentimes have families that will say, Can you post on my behalf? Can I pay you to run my social media? And I always say, you know, that's the line to me, where I become more of a facilitator. And that is not something legally that is worth the risk for myself or my family. And so therefore, I help them build their stories, teach them what to do, and say they need to consult with an adoption attorney in their state, understand the laws around how they can leverage this information and still be within the bounds of the law. It is one of those situations when people are nervous. I'm like, great, I think you're a very good candidate for an agency. Yeah, you either need to talk to an attorney and follow their advice to the tee, or you've got to talk to an agency and have them run this for you. Because it's one of those areas. It's just not worth the risk. 

Kelly: Yeah, I agree. I just had a family call me yesterday who just finished their home study, and they're like, now what? Well, I probably shouldn't be your first call. But let's talk about, you know, the wide world of options. I think it's a huge spectrum of services that are available to families, and they, you know, where you are comfortable is going to be very specific. And I always think of it as sort of a weighing of your risk tolerance and your adoption budget. 

Amanda: Yeah, those two seem to be the factors that most drive the choices families make. Okay. So in your state, you can work with an adoption profile expert to help you create your profile. You can share it yourself and match yourself or you can work with an agency whether it be a for-profit or a nonprofit agency. Those agencies typically also have services to help you with passing your home study and your post-placement visits. So then you've matched. The one question I often get in other states or you know, the topic we talk about is putative father registries. Are there putative father registries in the state of North Carolina?

Kelly:  We do not have a putative father registry. There's proposed legislation right now, that is the topic of much debate among the very small pool of adoption attorneys to have a meeting a week from today to discuss it in more depth because we're sort of not aligned in how we view it. Currently, no registry, and instead of a registry, we have the individual notice requirement. 

Amanda: Okay, that makes sense. And then earlier, you were talking about the 90 days. And you mentioned that you're going through the post-placement visits. You also mentioned ICPC. I think it might be a little confusing for the audience to say how post-placement visits and ICPC work if I live out of state that the baby was born in North Carolina or vice versa. 

Kelly: Yeah, that's a great question. I always try to explain to families that they are engaging in two distinct, legally required processes. There's overlap, but they are running sort of parallel. And they have a different set of rules and a different set of players. And that is your finalization process through your court in your ICPC process. And the ICPC process is it starts when the baby is discharged from the hospital. And we give notice to the Office of the State, the ICPC office of the state where the baby was born, that they, a baby's been born in this state, and intends to be adopted by a family in this other state. And we want to make sure that you are communicating with that state to coordinate services and supervision. So we file that paperwork and then the home state approves and sends it to the receiving state receiving stages the state where the family lives. The receiving state then says okay, we promise the receiving state that we are going to take care of this case and provide supervision that supervision responsibility is delegated to the post-placement supervising agency. And so those post-placement reports get reported to the court and that other legal process and to the ICPC offices. So that the receiving state can show the sending state that they've kept their promise to keep the baby safe. And if at any recent point, that adoption isn't moving forward, we have to notify ICPC. There's also a responsibility that custody be restored to the family of origin, the birth parent who placed unless the social services departments tell us that's not going to be permitted. It's unsafe for us to do that. But we sort of have those parallel tracks. And so the reason that we're sharing post-placement supervision reports with ICPC is that they have trusted us to allow the baby to cross state lines for adoption, with the caveat that they must verify it's going well and safe for the baby. 

Amanda: Awesome. So you are leaving once you get ICPC clearance to go back to your state and finish out your post-placement visits in your state going through the process accordingly. You're not staying in North Carolina. 

Kelly: No. 

Amanda: Okay, that makes sense. I know that sometimes we can all kind of shortcut to 90 days, my goodness, and you know, ICPC means I'm staying in the state for 90 days, I wanted to make sure we were super clear on that. 

Kelly: There's also I always feel excited to share the silver lining of COVID. And the silver lining of COVID is that ICPC has become such a much more efficient process. Before COVID, we were FedExing these big stacks of paper from one office to another and you know, it had to clear mail rooms and get to adjudicators and they're flipping and now we do everything electronically. And the states are communicating electronically. And what used to take many, many days you know, you were losing two or three days just in the insert FedEx process can now be done in the same day next day. I mean, we are seeing the fastest turnarounds we've ever seen in ICP. And so when I used to tell people they should plan to be displaced for about two weeks. I now say give me five business days and that is great.

Amanda: Yeah, that's huge. Yeah, with our oldest we stayed in Florida for three weeks, waiting to get clearance to come back to Arkansas. You’re just ready to come home. So every day waiting for that phone call was a long 21 days for sure.

Kelly: Yeah, and hotels and bottles and diapers and just all the things. It's really hard. 

Amanda: Yeah, I mean, it was really expensive. It was one of those unexpected expenses on our part that we just didn't plan for. We had dogs that we were boarding and we needed someone to go by and check on our house and you know, and eating out and all the things right. It's a unique skill set to prepare for that for sure. Yeah. So I would love it if you could share any other kind of words of wisdom or stories with our audience, I think we oftentimes learn better as a community hearing what other folks have gone through. Do you have any things that you would like to share with the audience in that vein?

Kelly: Yeah, I mean, I think that how you staff your adoption, who is on your team, is sort of fundamentally important to how you're going to experience the process. And so I think families should look for people who give them confidence in the process, but not false confidence. Find somebody whom you can receive hard information from and who you will trust will manage this process for you in a way that will allow you to not have to carry that anxiety, fear, and stress while building your family. And so, I always say, I may not be the right attorney. For every family, I move with a sense of urgency, and because I want it done for you as quickly as we can and I'm also sort of direct, if I have bad news, you're going to answer the phone, and I'm going to say, Hey, it's Kelly, I have bad news. I'm not constitutionally capable of doing anything else, except being completely transparent. And for some people, that's just not a great fit. And that's okay.

Amanda: That's right. That's exactly right. 

Kelly: So build your team of people you trust, and people who share your values and your vision for how this should go. Make sure that you have a clear understanding of what they need from you and what you need from them for it to work. I was a person who hated surprises as a child. My mother wanted me to wrap my own Christmas gifts because she knew otherwise, it would just be a constant barrage of questions for her. And so she would put a single piece of tape on the boxes, and sat me down and leave the room and was just like, if you destroy your surprises,  you destroy your surprises. The sort of cautionary tale is another piece of advice I give, which is to listen to your gut. When things feel off, explore that it is, you know, in those cases where we've had things not go well, or where we've discovered, you know, bad acts and bad actors, birth moms, matched with multiple families or birth moms, truly planning to parents, but just using this for, you know, income. You think the process, the adoptive parents for income or denial of drug use, and exposure has been something we've been seeing more and more of, you know, they swear they're clean, and everything's great. And then we've got a baby in withdrawal in the NICU. And of course, there were signs along the way, you know, that that maybe should have been explored. And when I talk to families, they'll say there was this one time, and I always say, you have to tell me. I promise I'll be honest and say like, yeah, that's not right. We need to figure that out. And then there are some things that we just don't have any control over. I mean, that's the sort of flip side of it. You have to access a large degree of surrendering of control. And so grasp tightly the things you can control and set for you the things you can't which is not a strength of mine, but I can certainly help families with that advice. We, in general, when I am speaking to families who are starting their adoption process or starting to explore adoption, domestic adoption, I typically say call and talk to lots of people to find out their perspectives because you will benefit from it and you are beholden to none of them and none of our, you know, you don't, you're not we're just sharing information, and you will be better for it. I also say trust your gut. Listen to your intuition. It has served you well, in this world, you should not abandon it in an adoption process. Because naive optimism isn't a great trait here. People want so desperately to grow their families that they are willing to shut out everything, their senses are telling them. And we don't want them to do that. And then I think also you want to be clear on the risks that you're willing to take and comfortable taking. The risks are legal risks, financial risks, and emotional risks, there are all sorts of risks and an adoption. And I had a case, last year, I think about this case, all the time, birth parents were placing with friends of theirs, friends who lived out of state. But they had made a placement plan. I had been heavily involved, and I was representing the birth mother in this placement. And we had FaceTimed and met and spent lots of time talking about her hospital plan. And she was very clear on what she wanted. And it had all been communicated. And then I get to the hospital. And she's like, Listen, I know you've been doing this doomsday planning with me, but I have a new deal breaker. And I'm like, I thought we were signing consents. She said the deal breaker for me is that if they both get hit by a bus, I want the baby to come back. And I was like, well,  let's sort of talk this through. Because I can't I mean, I just can't imagine that that is going to be possible, because let's just pretend for a second that this child is 14. And they've had three other children join their family, and you are a virtual stranger. And they've just lost their parents. And then what we're going to take this child away from siblings and grandparents and communities and schools, and she was like, yep, that's what we're doing. Deal breaker. I'm not signing the consent unless they agree. And then the adoptive family was like, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? Should we just agree? And of course, I'm not their attorney. But I'm like, No. This is a wild ask. We ended up getting it sorted and she backed down. And I said, You know what, look, we're not gonna do the paperwork today. I'm gonna go stay in the hotel, I'll come back in the morning with some coffee for everybody. And we'll see where we are. But, if this is truly a deal breaker, then the deal is broken. And we need to figure it out. And we did, and it all worked out. But I think two things I learned from that. One is, to be curious, ask lots of questions, and be patient. And don't be in a rush. Because I think, had I been in a rush to get out of there. And had the adoptive parents been in a rush to have it settled, they would have agreed to something that they that wasn't going to be truthful. And the risks of them getting hit by a bus are low. But that's a wild request. Right? They might be on a list of people that should be consulted. I think that's where we landed is that they would be on a list of people who would be involved in what would happen to the children and that they would have continued access, because it's going to be an open adoption, which, of course, I think makes great sense. 

Amanda: Yeah, sure. To your point of not being in a hurry and not setting yourself up for the temporary relief of the worry and the concern in the moment for a lifetime of worry and concern. Because as the adoptive parent, if you didn't intend to live up to that agreement, then that's just you know, bad acting on your part, right? You don't want to sign something you don't intend to live up to even in death. But then it creates this rift potentially between you throughout the relationship. There are so many other stressors that just naturally happen in life, why not take the time to your point and deal with it in the moment so that you're not adding to the pile later?

Kelly: Well, and I saw the sort of escalation of fear in the adoptive parents and sort of digging in and like leveraging that fear in the placing parents, and none of that was in service of the child. Right. None of that didn't have anything to do with what was happening that had to do with everybody just being emotionally wiped out. And so, you know, I made the call, like, you know, what we're gonna do is we're gonna get some sleep. We're gonna cool off and we're going to try again tomorrow. And then if you know, and I said to her, Look, if I come tomorrow, and when we don't get this sorted, I'll come back the next day. Like it's not, right, we'll do it when it's right to do it, or we won't do it at all if that's the place that we land. And that's okay, too. But I just thought that was an interesting case. And then I had a very young birth mother reach out expectant mother, forgive me reach out recently and what she envisioned for her, she was having a really hard time finding a match. And when I talked to her, I said, Well, tell me what you're looking for. And she wanted to be present at every doctor's visit, for the first two years of her child. She wanted to have weekly, unsupervised overnight visits. And I said, you're looking for co-parenting, you're, you're not looking for adoption, you're looking for shared responsibility. And I think that's going to be hard to find in the context of an adoption. I mean, I think what you might do better with is sort of identifying community resources or respite care if you need a break, or, you know, but it doesn't sound to me like what you want is an adoption, because adoption is extinguishing those rights you want to take advantage of, and giving them to somebody else. She ended up not placing. But there are people in the adoption community who would have sort of tried to make that work. And I just felt like that would have been a dishonest way to move forward.

Amanda: Yeah, it would be very potentially confusing for the child too from a developmental perspective of kind of bouncing back and forth and such. To your point, having the patience as an adoptive family not being less than honest with what you feel equipped to do – and to live up to that is important. I oftentimes will get people will show up in my DMs and they'll say, you know, I was presented with this opportunity, but there's this drug exposure, this whatever, but I think we're just gonna go ahead and like lean in and take the risk. And I oftentimes counsel them and say, just, you know, one, take a breath. I encourage you to go speak with the pediatrician to understand what a child born with that type of addiction or exposure, could mean, and whether are you equipped to parent this child. Don't be so in a rush to make this decision, because you want to alleviate the burden or the pain that you're feeling of not having a child at home. You've got to make sure you can care for that child in the end, and provide the right level of care that they need and deserve. It's really important.

Kelly: Well, and I, I say to both adopting families and placing families that I don't want the decisions they make in an adoption to be crisis-driven. Yeah, because that's not when we make our best decisions. And so you know, it's one of the reasons I don't believe an eight-week pregnant, expectant mom should be matching. I discourage matching before 20 weeks even. I mean, I just think it takes that long to sort of digest the idea of being pregnant and starting to get through the hormonal insanity of early pregnancy. In my experience, I find that women who match very, very early in their pregnancy are the least likely to move forward with the match at the most the highest rate of failure. I should say, that they end up being the most expensive failures because of the support that's needed and the investment of time. And I just think it's a bad practice.

Amanda: Yeah, I completely agree. I have a client recently whom I created their profile, and they shared it with our agency, they matched right away, and they were super excited. It was like tell me all the things so because of course, I also ride in those emotions with them of like, Oh, I'm so excited. You've matched tell me all the things and they're like, well, she's 10 weeks along, and my heart just sank for them. And I was like, Hey, listen, I wish you the best of luck in this situation. But let's also be eyes wide open about this. We are very early in pregnancy, and the failure rate is much higher. And you know, in a situation like that, let's make sure you're protecting your heart and your finances and asking those tough questions to your agency as well. It was also very eye-opening to me how the agency is handling that situation. They're currently still matched, and they've made it to 16 weeks now. But, you know, every week that goes by is it's critical.

Kelly: Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda: So any other tales that you would like to share with the audience, or any just general advice that you're like, there's just one thing I've got to tell you before we wrap up our discussion today?

Kelly: Yeah, I mean, I think absolute honesty is sort of critical. Open eyes, open heart, open mind. I find that the families that had the adopting families who have the hardest time in the process are families that expect to have control and to have a plan you know, and they can't understand why an expectant mother isn't making the same decision that they would make in her situation. And I often have to remind them that if she was in your situation, she wouldn't be making an adoption plan. Right? It is her environment and circumstances that have led her to make an adoption plan. And so that is going to lead her to make different decisions than you would make. And you don't have any control over the decisions she makes. So you can be curious, and you can be kind, but you can't be in control. So, work work through that. I think that's probably the hardest thing for adoptive families to sort of reconcile. Because most people who are choosing to grow their families approach it as though like, Okay, this is the decision I've made. And now we're going to take the steps to make it happen. I don't view it that way at all, I think you've made the choice to grow your family, and now you are choosing to get on a ride with somebody else in charge. And I can't guarantee you where it's going to take you or what's going to happen on the ride. But we hope everything's gonna work out. And my job is to sort of identify the risks along the way. And you know, when we hit a hole, or when something bad happens, sort of help us strategize our way out. We're another ride. But yeah, I think I'm a very type A control freak person. So I completely identify with that need and desire. But it can't be met. 

Amanda: Yeah, I agree. It was the toughest part of my process. I'm a very type-A control freak. And I mean, listen, if you saw the plans, upon plans upon plans that I have for all the different situations and backup plans, and learning that I had to relinquish that control was tough in the adoption process. I was very fortunate that the adoption attorney that we consulted as we started our journey was like, You got to put your list away. And you've got to just take the journey, ask the questions when you don't understand something, and to your point, trust your gut. Because if you lose sight of that, that is a surefire way you're going to get yourself in trouble. Well, thank you so much for being willing to do this today. I certainly appreciate it. Can you share with their audience how they can get in touch with you when we can also link to anything in the show notes as well? 

Kelly: Sure. So I am an attorney at a law firm called Fox Rothschild. So you can find me there, kdempsey@foxrothschild.com, you can call me at 919-710-8199. That is our main line. Those are probably the two best ways to reach me, you can find me in the Academy of Adoption Attorneys directory in North Carolina. You can find me on the National Council for Adoption Directory as one of their attorney professionals. And we partner with lots of agencies. So you can just ask them for who they recommend. But I am always happy to be a resource to families at any stage of the process. And at no cost. I don't allow families to hire me until they have matched and I can begin to add legal value to their cases. One thing that I did want to say and that I do want to say is about the financial component of legal services and the adoption space. We work on a flat fee model here. And it is all spelled out in what I call painful detail in our engagement letter. But our fees are collected at the start of the entire process. We have allocated the fees into three milestones, meaning the funds are all held in trust until we have met the milestone, and then we pull the funds out and it's earned. If your adoption fails along the way, at any point, anything that has not been earned is returned to you. And I think that's an important question to ask your team members, what is my financial risk to you if this doesn't go well? And so we have sort of adopted this model of a completely transparent process. Each milestone has a lot of words telling you what we're going to do and when it will be met. And then you'll get an accounting from us every time we meet a milestone, and you sort of get regular reporting from us about where we are in the process anyway. But I think it's nice to know when you go in if things go south, what am I going to be able to do. I think it's really important for you to have that clarity on the front side because if your adoption fails, you don't want your financial liability to a process that failed to be the reason you're not able to move forward with another process.

Amanda: Yeah, that is unique. I don't oftentimes hear that from attorneys. So thank you for being willing to do that for our community. I know, to your point, it's a lot of paperwork to keep up with all of those milestones and to be able to report on that to your clients. But that transparency is key and important in building that relationship. Because I can't count the number of families that will tell me, you know, well, we actually can't adopt anymore because we had an opportunity fail at an agency. And so, and because it failed, it wiped out our funds. So now we're trying to fundraise to just hire an attorney and just tried to do the best we can on our own.

Kelly: That just breaks my heart. I never want to be the reason a family isn't growing. Like I just, personally, that's not okay for me. And so we've created this model to give some fairness to my team, about the work that we've done, but also to try to be as restorative as possible to a family who's just experienced a loss. 

Amanda: Yeah,I am right there with you. I’ve recently moved to that model in my own business where you can take my templates, you can watch videos, and do the same thing that I do for someone on a one-to-one basis, you can go do it all yourself, just to make it budget-friendly, right? And so I'm trying to meet people where they are because again, I started this because I wanted adoption to be easier and more affordable for families. I didn't want that cost to be a barrier. We were fortunate to have the ability to borrow from our retirement and pay ourselves back to adopt our children. And I oftentimes think, you know, man, if we hadn't had that opportunity, my life would look very different.

Kelly: Can I say one more thing about the failed adoption tax credit? I am not a tax attorney. But I do think families should know. And when I talk to families after they've experienced a dissolution, displacement, disruption, or just a failed match, many of them have never heard of this. And the federal adoption, tax credit is available for failed domestic placements, the same as it is for a successful placement. So I am not a tax attorney, and I am not a CPA, but I just want everybody to know that there is a piece of what you've lost that may be able to be credited to you through the adoption tax credit. And so if you've had a loss, you should talk to your accountant about that, for sure.

Amanda: Absolutely. That's what happened in our situation. Once we had our disruption, the way it fell year-wise allowed us to apply those funds to our next opportunity. So that's something to look into. Well, thank you so much again, Kelly, for being willing to join us. We'll be sure to link all of Kelly's information in the show notes. So if you're watching this on YouTube, just scroll down and you'll find the information there. Or if you're listening to us on the podcast, just make sure you click the three little dots and hit learn more and you'll be able to see all of Kelly's information. But thank you so much, Kelly, we do appreciate your time. Have a great day. 

Kelly: You too. 

Amanda: Listen, Kelly’s just so nice. I love her perspective on how building a team around you in your adoption process is really critical, and that not everyone is the right fit for each other and that is okay. You want to find an adoption attorney, agency or even profile expert that helps give you the confidence that you have the right partner guiding you in this journey. And of course, you want to make sure that you're operating within the bounds of the law, which is why it's so important to make sure you have the right adoption attorney on your side. If you want to learn more about adoption success stories, check out my conversation with Kinsey and Matt, who brought home their daughter in just one month.