Drop ceiling remodel..where to start

Our home was built in 1977 and has painted popcorn ceilings, and a painted drop popcorn ceiling in the kitchen. We have always talked about having the dropped ceiling removed, but there are AC ducts and electrical above the ceiling, part of which is sandwiched between the 1st floor ceiling and 2nd story floor. It’s not going to be as easy as we first thought when we bought the house.

While attempting to have a solar tube installed in the higher part of the kitchen ceiling, it was discovered that the original ceiling was actually dropped further, and there is a ceiling above what we thought was normal height ceiling (which is actually 4 inches lower). We removed a canned light to take a look, and the higher ceiling is sagging and is probably compromised. Complicating the issue is that the ceiling from the bathroom and kitchen have tested positive for asbestos. Before we knew this, we scraped the bedroom ceiling (which was not painted) and the laundry room (which was painted). The non-painted was super messy, but not that hard. The painted ceiling was an absolute nightmare. I used latex paint remover, water, and lots of effort to get that ceiling down.

Where do we go from here? I’ve seen some suggest scraping and being careful to keep everything wet, but painted ceiling is almost impossible to scrape. I used latex paint remover, water, and ended up with bloody knuckles in the laundry room scraping the painted popcorn. I’ve also seen the suggestion to cover with 1/4 drywall, but we want the dropped ceiling removed.

We’ve even discussed just moving, but now we have to disclose the asbestos AND the sagging ceiling above the visible ceiling.

What kind of professional should we start with? Asbestos abatement? Drywaller? Construction firm? Designer?

We are located just outside of Austin.