An adoption agency can: 
  Help you obtain prenatal care if needed.
  Introduce you to a pregnancy counselor:  who understands your concerns and fears while waiting for your child's birth; who understands your wishes for how you'd like things to go when your child is born; and who understands your emotions while healing after placement. Your very own support person will be with you all the way.
  Help provide a life-long link between you and your child's adoptive family.
  Provides all counseling and services confidentially and free of charge to you in all stages of the adoption process.

Our state (WI) requires adopting families to use an adoption agency to begin and to complete an adoption. We have hired the Bethany Christian Services office located in Waukesha, Wisconsin to take care of these things for us.  When a couple decides to adopt, an adoption agency's social worker thoroughly investigates the couple during a family assessment process called a homestudy. We've been checked from top to bottom and inside out - which is our way of saying our homestudy is completed and approved! (For our adoption agency this process involved criminal background checks, medical screenings, drug screenings, submission of personal references, employment checks, a check of our home, and discussions with the social worker about our desire and readiness to adopt, our values, our lifestyle and our parenting philosophy. Whew!  It was a long process, but a good one because it really helped us realize how very much we desire to expand our family through adoption!!) Having a completed homestudy also helps assure a woman that the family she has chosen for her child is really ready to adopt.

You, your attorney and/or your counselor are welcome to contact our adoption agency if you are interested in us as possible adoptive parents for your child, or if you have questions about adoption in general and just want more information.  You may contact our Bethany office at 1-800-551-0505 (in WI).  Or if you are calling from out of state, dial 1-262-547-6557 (call collect). Ask for Lauree or Georgia; they would be happy to talk with you.  Bethany's 24/7 national hotline number is 1-800-BETHANY.