Shelia Davis and her wonderful husband are the adoptive parents of three children through domestic private infant adoption. Their youngest child was diagnosed with autism when he began missing milestones. They have had to learn many new parenting techniques to help their son. Shelia is the founder of Heaven Sent Adoption Services, Inc. She strives to help women with unplanned pregnancies make informed decisions about parenting or placing their babies. She encourages all of her potential adoptive parents to research and engage in open loving adoptions. She notes that, “Adoption is very personal to me as I am the sister of two brothers through adoption, the mother of three children through adoption, a friend to three birth parents through adoption, a child of God through adoption and a director of a licensed adoption agency.”

In response to a heated discussion that included this question: "Is a referral service basically a consultant, sort of like a wedding planner? My understanding is that facilitators are illegal in some states, like Florida. "

Shelia writes the following: First off - it is just a "title" as to what they call themselves and I don't think the words matter at all....it's the way they work, their ethics, the money they charge and who oversees their practice's that are more important.

There are both good and bad Facilitators and Referral Services -

1. They are both small businesses having ONLY a business licenses and not overseen by the courts or the government like a child placing agency or attorney is.

2. They can charge whatever they like because they are not accountable to a court system for their revenues like an agency or attorney is.

3. They are not required to have trained social workers or counselors to provide services to you or the Expectant mothers.

Linda Lach is an experienced adoption lawyer in Hawaii. She frequently shares her experience to help others in their adoption journey. She recently responded to the question, “My husband and I are very interested in adoption, but we are at the very beginning of our journey. Do we place with an agency or go with private adoption? Is there certain criteria to be able to adopt?” on the adoptionscams.com yahoo blog. She has given us permission to reprint her response here. Linda also works with surrogacy and guardianship occasionally. Domestic independent adoption has been a major part of her life since 1984. While she is licensed in Hawaii, she gladly provides services to birthmothers and adoptive parents located in other states.

Continued from Guest Blog: How to Get Started - Part 2

Linda Lach is an experienced adoption lawyer in Hawaii. She frequently shares her experience to help others in their adoption journey. She recently responded to the question, “My husband and I are very interested in adoption, but we are at the very beginning of our journey. Do we place with an agency or go with private adoption? Is there certain criteria to be able to adopt?” on the adoptionscams.com yahoo blog. She has given us permission to reprint her response here. Linda also works with surrogacy and guardianship occasionally. Domestic independent adoption has been a major part of her life since 1984. While she is licensed in Hawaii, she gladly provides services to birthmothers and adoptive parents located in other states.

At first, the information available about adoption can seem overwhelming. In the "old days,” potential adoptive parents would talk to a friend, neighbor, or fellow church member in hopes of finding out "how to." Now, the Internet has changed the landscape - information overload isn't too strong a term to use. I'll try to simplify things a bit.

May I suggest that you go to your local bookstore, library, fire up your Kindle, or go to Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com online, and look at books on adoption. There are so many of them now, and after reading a few, you'll have a much better idea about how one can go about it. I don't suggest that you follow any one of them as you would follow a cookbook. In my honest opinion, none of them are perfect. But each will have something to offer.

In the mean time, here is my free lesson on how to adopt, including the following disclaimer. (Keep in mind that this is a free summarized version and therefore cannot cover everything. Also, each adoption has some unique aspects that need to be addressed by an adoption professional. This is for informational purposes and is not legal advice.)

1) Despite all the stuff out there, believe it or not, there are only two, count 'em, two, ways to adopt: through an agency, or independently. Social Services/Child Protective Services ("CPS"), or whatever it is called in your state, is an agency for this discussion. So is the County or the State.

2) This is the same whether you are adopting domestically or internationally, although almost ALL international adoptions are through agencies. There are a few exceptions to this, but not enough to warrant discussion.

One of my adopted child’s friends is fascinated with adoption. My eight-year-old son is the one who told his friend about his adoption. To my son, his adoption is just a basic fact about his life that is not interesting, novel, or worthy of extended discussion. However, his friend comes up with all sorts of questions about the adoption as he tries to make sense of what adoption means.

This morning, the question was, “What did Nicholas’ birth mother name him?” I found it interesting that Nicholas never thought to ask this question. So, I shared the full story with both of them. When we met my adopted child’s birth mother, she was still pregnant. In the course of the conversation, she asked us if we had chosen a name yet. It was very important to her that he have a name on his original birth certificate and not just “Baby Boy X.” Hub said that we had been considering the name Nicholas. She repeated the name and smiled. She then said that she liked the name. From what we have been told, she did name him Nicholas on his original birth certificate.

That got me thinking about how fortunate we are that all parents (birth and adoptive) agreed on his name.