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Hi Jenn,
I think it's great that you're considering adoption. Our circumstances are different, but similar. Like you... if we're willing to put up with some risks/expenses we could very likely have biological children (although we have some known limitations on our fertility our specialist really feels that either patience or a little medical intervention would change that).
However, given the chance to contemplate how to build our family . . . we're choosing adoption also (sadly, I probably wouldn't have even thought to look into adoption if we easily fell pregnant and had uncomplicated pregnancies).
Like you . . . getting in line to adopt a healthy white infant wouldn't serve our purpose (we'd be taking that chance from a truly infertile couple and for the extra risks/struggles that adoption takes... we could pursue infertility treatment and probably have better luck reaching our goal of having children).
Once stopping and thinking about all the wonderful little souls born in this world without a family to care for them . . . we really want to give a home to a child who needs one (and healthy white infants will have no trouble finding this).
However, we're not experts in special needs and we do have the desire to raise children from a young age on . . . so state or foster to adopt didn't seem like our answer either (in our state the wait for a child under age 6 is over two years).
Two alternatives seemed to fit our needs of parenting most of our child's lifetime and giving a home to a child in need . . . U.S. infant adoption of non-caucasion kids or international adoption.
The next thing we looked at was ourselves. I think we could do well with a transracial family and I also think we're up to dealing with orphanage delays and extra work on attachment and bonding . . . so both alternatives still looked good. Next we started to look at our community and how our community would treat our children and our children would feel in our community. We live in a rural midwest area that is 99.9% white. I would not say people are racist here (well of course some are, but proportionately I think it's a population of good people)... however, I do think our non-caucasian children would feel different here and although maybe not always intentional I think people would say stupid things to our children, and some would treat them poorly.
So . . . we looked at international adoption from Eastern Europe as a way to have a family with your children, give a child a better life, and still avoid some of the racial struggles they we just aren't up dealing with (maybe with our next adoption when we realize we're pretty good at this parenting thing ; )
Russia meets our needs of relatively young children (probably under 12 months, possibly as young as 6 months), a child that will not stand out to the other school children or their parents, a child to love, raise and adore with the added plus of a beautiful culture to learn about and help our child be proud of.
Where Russia might not work for you . . . is if you really want to have your child from the newborn stage, or are not up to the risks of post-institutionalized children. A lot of research on this and on transracial adoption helped us to determine which issues we felt we could be prepared for.
Because we could possibly also be blessed with a biological child in the future, we've also thought about the bio/adopted sibling relationship. You occasionally here a horror story, but in talking to families with similar relationships and adult adoptees, it usually goes well. Your biological child would follow your example of unconditional love (with some normal sibling rivalry thrown in of course) and I'm sure would have no issue with a transracial adoption. Also, when "adoption" is what a family knows . . . I think kids feel it is a normal, wonderful way to build a family. I would hope she wouldn't start being fed foolish comments from schoolmates or adults until she is quite a bit older and very confident in her family relationship.
Sorry for going on and on . . . I rarely feel I have an interested party for this discussion, so when I get a chance, I start rambling.
Good luck in your family planning. I'll bet life with your little angel is wonderful . . . how beautiful it will be when your family is even bigger.
Sharon
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