My wife and I contracted with Lifetime Adoption and I for one am extremely disappointed. I would not recommend them at all. Keep in mind they are FOR PROFIT - and what profits they must make!
You'd think you'd be getting something special for the $12,000 fee (now $17,000, IIRC). Their marketing materials speak of a ""vast network"" and some ""database"" they have that magically matches you with a birth-mother.
In their literature (what little you get BEFORE you sign the contract and write them a check), they claim to be experts at facilitating matches with prospective birth mothers, and that their fee goes into promoting you as adoptive parents and birth mother outreach. I didn't believe it but my wife thought we should take a chance as we are desperate to start a family and are not getting any younger.
First off, you're required to do almost everything yourself. You have to do all your own promotional text and pictures, design and create your own hard-copy and on-line profiles, and birth-mother letters with minimal guidance and virtually no feedback. In our case it cost over $1,000 just to produce the minimum 50 hard copy profiles they require. All I've seen them do is take a web-form submission page that we filled in and incorporate it randomly into their web site.
They require you to have a 1-800 number (at your expense) in the event a birth-mother is interested in you. But they do not participate directly as facilitators in any communication between you and the birth-mother.
They do not help in obtaining medical records during the birth-mother's pregnancy. You're on your own.
They do not send a representative/facilitator/social worker to the hospital if you desire a newborn. You're on your own.
They do not provide any legal services or legal representation. You're on your own.
They do not give any feedback during the process about potential birthmothers, if any have been interested in you. You're on your own, left to wonder and hope.
They do not respond to questions in a timely manner. Email responses normally took a week or more.
While we were waiting we asked them to tell us how we could improve our profile - they once said it was ""beautiful"" but other than that, nothing. Of course, if you need to update your profile on-line, they charge a fee of $50/hr.
They even jerked our chain by sending us an email saying ""we have a birth mother who's interested in you, we're just waiting for her paperwork"". My wife was excited, but I was suspicious as they evidently violated their own stated rules. Well, we're still waiting. That is INCREDIBLY UNETHICAL.
As of this date we have not had a single birthmother contact.
I would avoid them at all costs and go through a non-profit or state agency. Maybe Lifetime will eventually deliver on their promises before our contract expires, but for the price I expected a LOT more service, honesty, and transparency.
Pros: Slick marketing
Cons: Everything else
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