[bryanac625]

My wife and I are an interracial couple considering adoption of a child of African-American parents (one or both) and are concerned about issues that American adoptions can be difficult and expensive. We know of quite a few couples who have adopted internationally but none who have adopted American children. I've heard that it's harder for black children to get adopted because, well, they're black. But then I hear white couples who adopt kids from Asia saying it's hard to adopt American children. I just wonder sometimes if "difficult" includes black children. Please share your experiences.

Thanks,

Bryan & Tami C.

[BZmom7]

We are aslo an interraical couple and we adopted an infant AA baby boy in 2004. He'll be 3yrs. old the end of this month. We had no problems, other the the waiting for the time to pass quickly after we were matched and he was born. We live in Illinois, and went through an agency in Ohio. The interstate compact was a little longer then usual, but we made it though ok.

We are now fostering a sibling group of a 5yr. boy and his little sister who's 15 months. We're hoping to adopt them.

Good Luck
_______________________________________
Cindi
bio mom to 4
step mom to 2
amom to 1
fostermom to 2

[alpacamommy]

That can't be farther from the truth!!!!! We paid 12,000 and got our baby within 2 weeks of signing with the agency. She was 3 days old when we got her. We also had a choice of three babies at the time. I am sure others will chime in soon to put your fears to rest. BTW, we are not interacial, me, Dh and our two bio teens are CC.

[jaenelle]

We are currently waiting to finalize Yuna's adoption. She is full African-American, and we have had her with us since she was 5 days old. She was already born when we got the call about her, the papers already signed. She is healthy and beautiful. We started our process at the end of March and our homestudy took until July to get done, which is a LONG time compared to most people, but once we were approved by the agency, it was a bit over 2 months until we got the call. We were shown to one birthmother and not chosen, turned another situation down (which was good, because that mom decided to parent), and Yuna was the third situation we were offered. It was a heartbreaking wait and I won't tell anyone otherwise, but in retrospect I know we are so much luckier than many other families.

(Incidentally, we used the same agency as traceyk)

[shortlittlemama]

Unless going through the state, I think all adoptions are too expensive. With that said, we adopted a beautiful little boy through an agency. It was too expensive, but we planned ahead for the expense and don't regret spending a dime of it! From the time we were activated to the match was just under two months. He was black and born 10 weeks early, so the pool of potential parents was significantly reduced. There were a couple of minor items that were outside of our match criteria, but the agency asked us if we would like to have our profile shown to the mother anyway. It took us about five minutes to say go ahead, and we were chosen from 6 couples shown to the mother. Considering our agency has an average of 130 active couples, 6 seems like a very small number open to his situation. I think you have to research the differences and decide what is best for your family, but I only have good things to say about our domestic experience.

[rredhead]

We're CC and our son is AA/CC. On our agency's web site, you could search by the ethnicity that the aparents were looking for. We were the only profile to come up when searching for AA, and there were only 3 to come up when searching for AA/CC. I just tried again the other day, for the heck of it, and none came up for AA and only 1 for AA/CC.
I don't recommend our agency, but it illustrates a point: there are a lot of aparents out there looking for CC children, but not AA. Being an interracial couple, you should match pretty quick. A lot of pbmoms who are having AA babies, want their babies to be in an AA home, but don't have that option.
Good luck!

[vegangoddess]

i agree that the price has gone up in recent years...but was very inexpensive for our sons........ we too are in ohio....and adopted through the same agency as bzmom... and we my dh and i are very happy...... and were placed quickly...... 4 day wait for our firs...and 2 months for our second........ our sons are aa and biracial.... good luck to you!!!

[StillaMomma]

Tami,

What a very interesting question. I have often wondered the same thing. What IS the definition of difficult when considering international over domestic adoption.

[mod]

We are an interacial couple and wanted to adopt a biracial or full AA child.
We used the same agency as Tracey and Jaenelle.
We were chosen by a young couple two days after signing with the agency but they decided to parent 5 minutes after they chose us. Two weeks later we were matched again but the adoption failed at the TPR signing. One week later we were matched again and baby had just been born...and now our baby is home with us. I definitely wouldn't say it was difficult (well, except for our failed placement...that was horrible for us but best for baby and mom). With travel, homestudy, and agency fees it was expensive but SOOOOOO worth it.

Monique

[joskids]

We're an interracial couple with 4 adopted children. One is full AA, the other 3 are biracial. We did not have a difficult time adopting at all and we are not a young couple. As for expense, depends on what you call expensive. I found, though, that initially you look at fees and think "we can't do it" but God has found a way for us four times. Two of our placements were foster children previously so there was no fee involved. The other two were private and we did not wait long. I would say you should be able to adopt for about $12,000 but it's not ALL due upfront. First your homestudy fee and then matching fees, placement, and possibly medicals. You can tell the agency you want an insured birthmother and they will not present you with situations that include medicals. We are currently in Ohio but have also adopted in Michigan. I can give you the names of a couple of good agencies if you want to PM me. You shoult not wait long. As for international, we did consider Ethiopia when considering an older child. But for AA infants, you should not need to consider international adoption.

Josie

[mondk]

We want to adopt AA/biracial....could any of you please PM me the agencies you used and the cost. Thanks and blessings, Michelle

[Kat-L]

Originally Posted by bryanac625

My wife and I are an interracial couple considering adoption of a child of African-American parents (one or both) and are concerned about issues that American adoptions can be difficult and expensive. We know of quite a few couples who have adopted internationally but none who have adopted American children. I've heard that it's harder for black children to get adopted because, well, they're black. But then I hear white couples who adopt kids from Asia saying it's hard to adopt American children. I just wonder sometimes if "difficult" includes black children. Please share your experiences.

Thanks,

Bryan & Tami C.

I'm a caucasian woman who adopted two african american infants domestically. Neither time was it expensive or difficult to adopt. The first adoption was in 1997/98 and I used an agency that dealt with families in the Wash DC area. They charged a flat fee of $1200.00 which included homestudy, placement, post placement. I had to pay for court costs & misc. homestudy fees but the entire adoption was around $2000.00 Maire-Kate was 2 weeks old when I brought her home. It took the agency almost 5 months to do a homestudy-which was too long. But the match occured within 6 months of "waiting".

With the second adoption, I completed a homestudy on the last Friday of July in 2005. The following Wednesday I had a one month old African American girl placed with me. The adoption failed when the birth father contested (but I knew going into this particular situation that the parental rights of the parents weren't terminated prior to placement so there was a risk). After I gave Angel to her paternal aunt, I got a call about Hanna (who was 4.5 months old). I then picked her up two weeks later after the ICPC (interstate paperwork) was completed. So from homestudy in July to picking up Hanna, it was 4 months. Of those 4 months, I was only officially "waiting" for about 3 weeks total. With Hanna's adoption, the whole thing was about $3200.00 The homestudy was done by the county, the agency fee was $1000.00, the lawyer charged $975.00 plus court costs, the post placement visits were about $900.00
If I had to pay for a homestudy, my final cost would have been closer to $4400.
Also, Hanna was considered "special needs" because her birthmother used drugs during pregnancy (although Hanna has had no effects from the drug use). If Hanna was not "special needs", the placement fee would have been $4000.00 . So the total cost would have been closer to $7,000 rather than $3,000.

With Angel (the failed adoption), there would have been no fee because she was placed through the county.

So not only CAN you adopt domestically, if you call an agency Monday, you'll probably complete a homestudy by Memorial day and will be celebrating Thanksgiving & Christmas this year with your new son or daughter.

[jaenelle]

Originally Posted by Kat-L

So not only CAN you adopt domestically, if you call an agency Monday, you'll probably complete a homestudy by Memorial day and will be celebrating Thanksgiving & Christmas this year with your new son or daughter.

Yes, I wanted to chime in here on the timeline. Our adoption was CONSIDERABLY more expensive than either of Kat-L's, around $18,000 for everything. We haven't finalized yet but I'm including what expenses we anticipate for that in the $18,000.

We decided to pursue adoption February 24th. We started our homestudy March 31. Our homestudy was completed July 7. We were officially waiting with the agency July 27. Our daughter was born October 1st, and we picked her up October 5th.

So -- we started just after Valentine's Day and we were able to spend Halloween with our daughter, in addition to the Thanksgiving and Christmas Kat-L mentioned.

So, yes, it IS possible and it can even be quick and not that expensive, depending on what agency you choose.

Good luck.