[Brat]

We've only been waiting a short time, so I'm not complaining, but I wanted to run a little poll. If you're an interracial couple seeking to adopt a biracial (AA/CC) child, please answer the following:

1. When you were seeking out agencies, were you told to hurry up and contract because, as an interracial couple, you would be matched quickly?

2. If you have adopted, what month & year did you start waiting and what month & year did your child come home?

3. If you have not adopted, what month & year did you complete your homestudy and officially start waiting?

4. If you waited/are waiting longer than expected, what reason were you given?


My sig line answers 2&3, so I'll answer 1 & 4. There were quite a few agencies that we inquired into that said, "You'll be matched fast!" but before we signed on the dotted line I asked for hard stats and I'd suddenly hear, "well, usually we place lots of biracial kids, but over the past year or so it's been really slow." None of those agencies could give me a reason for the slowness. Our current agency doesn't do a ton of outreach, so there are no illusions there. I was just wondering about others' experiences. Is there really a "shortage" of biracial infants that began last year? If so, why?

[gela]

I could have written your post myself. Your situation is virtually identical to mine. Here are the answers to your questions:

1. When you were seeking out agencies, were you told to hurry up and contract because, as an interracial couple, you would be matched quickly?

Yes.

2. If you have adopted, what month & year did you start waiting and what month & year did your child come home?

N/A

3. If you have not adopted, what month & year did you complete your homestudy and officially start waiting?

Homestudy started 10/03; completed 11/03; wating to be matched since 12/03

4. If you waited/are waiting longer than expected, what reason were you given?

I was told originally it would not take more than 2-3 months. I'm currently trying to contact my SW for an update on our status.

[toni7]

Hello Brat - it'sme toni7 - and guess what we are still waitng with Holy Family. We were told that we would be matched quickly because we are an interracial couple - mind you the only interracial coule with the agency when we started and I believe we still are - we have not been matched once and our profile has not been shown- we were approved in August - we are wstill waiting - through our own networking we have had some interest and have bben matched but for various reasons we are still waiting. I know now that signing with an agency and paying up front is not the way to go - I have several calls in the last day's that we would be perfect for but there would be an addiotnal $$$$$ - more then we can pay at this time seeing how we are already $15,000 into this adoption. THink I answered all your questions except - no I did not think we woud dtill be waiting... Thanks for the poll

[kysila]

Hi Brat. . .

My husband and I started the Adoption process October 2002. We brought our son home December 2002 - new years eve actually. We are an interracial couple (not AA/CA, I am Asian and my husband is CA), but we wanted a biracial child. Our oldest son is CA/Asian and our youngest that we brought home last year is Asian/AA. We were told when we started the process that there was 7 babies being born in the next 5 months and only 2 couples (including us) would accept them into our homes. . .made us want to take all of them home!! Anyways, our process was pretty quick. Our adoption was finalized this past July.

[dkbw]

Brat;

Q1 - Yes, agency told us it would happen quickly

Q2 - Still waiting

Q3 - Homestudy complete 5/2003, active with agency 6/2003, matched with birthmother 8/2003, birthmother deceided to parent 9/2003, Moved in 11/2003 not active home study being updated --- still waiting

Q4 - Not really given a reason, getting frustrated with agency and personnel turn over doesn't help either.

Hoping and praying everyday for our baby to join our family.

DKBW

[Brat]

Congrats to those for whom a fast match was possible! As for those who are still waiting...I feel ya.

Toni, when I looked into HFS, as I mentioned to you before, they said there'd only been two biracial children each year for the past two years. One sw said we'd be in for a long wait but the guy who replaced her after she quit said he felt she was being pessimistic. Since we're interracial, he predicted a fast match. I tried so hard to get a straight answer out of him as to our payment options if we network on our own, but finally gave up. I don't think it was the agency, but I think it was him. At that point, combined w/our concerns about the stats, we walked away.

At this point, is there any way you can talk to the director and get any of your money refunded? You're doing your own networking, for criminies sake, and they are supposed to be doing that to the tune of about $4,000, after telling you that you'd have a fast match. We aparents slow down our own process by being selective, but they should have said that, rather than telling you that the match would be fast. You're new--how would you know differently?

Don't get me wrong: they seemed like such nice people when we looked into them. But on top of everything else, when we spoke to that guy, he said they'd been slow lately. This was back in spring, not the holidays. Maybe they're slow because they need to change their policies for all concerned. Maybe they need to take some of that money you paid and place an ad to attract women w/children of color to your agency. (<--OK, now that was just gripe-y)

[chanibelle]

Hi,
My husband and I are also an interracial couple. Could someone recommend an agency that places biracial children? We are just starting the process.

[mamacrina]

1. When you were seeking out agencies, were you told to hurry up and contract because, as an interracial couple, you would be matched quickly?

Yep. And because I'm AA, they considered us to be black. "First black couple in ___county ever! You'll be matched quickly, and my boss is always encouraging AA adoptions... whatever, if it looks good on her report that she matched a AA/CA couple, so be it.

2. If you have adopted, what month & year did you start waiting and what month & year did your child come home?
N/A

3. If you have not adopted, what month & year did you complete your homestudy and officially start waiting?

Well, we are unofficially approved (haven't received the "official" paper in the mail yet) this month.

4. If you waited/are waiting longer than expected, what reason were you given?

N/A But I have a feeling it will be awhile. I think at first she'll be on it, but after awhile it will slack off. (Can you tell I'm having a bad day??) :0)~~

Oh, and we're adopting through Human services...

[Net933]

Hi Kysila,

I wrote you a private message but I'm not sure how it all works so I'm writing to you on this threadalso. I'm African American and Asian and wanted to know which agency you used to get your Asian mixed babies. I would love to have an Asian mixed baby. I'm also single so I don't know if that would hinder me. Hope to hear from you soon.

Net

[lisa in venice]

1. When you were seeking out agencies, were you told to hurry up and contract because, as an interracial couple, you would be matched quickly?

Yes, the first time I called agencies in our area and none called me back. When I walked into one agency I had been trying to get ahold of and they saw that I was AA they put me in a an office an office and got a SW in there pronto

2. If you have adopted, what month & year did you start waiting and what month & year did your child come home?

1st time we waited three months. The 2nd time we waited 6 months. Tthe 3rd time we started looking for independent situations and waited 6 weeks to the match and 7 months til the birth. The 4th time we searched for just under three months for the match and three days for the birth (it was a surprise over a month early)

3. If you have not adopted, what month & year did you complete your homestudy and officially start waiting?

4. If you waited/are waiting longer than expected, what reason were you given?

the longest we waited was because we speified sex. We waited for a baby girl that was already born and that took six months

[acb]

My DH and I are a biracial couple (aa/c) in Delaware.
Homestudy approved 12/03 and placed in the books 2/04.
We are still waiting to be matched/placed since February (even though we have had a few requests to be shown one week after we were in the books).
Hopefully the wait will not be too long for us. We know there will be a baby for us that is meant to be! The waiting is like a roller coaster ride (checking the voice mail, emails, wondering, distractions, etc.) I think it's more like that for me than it is for my DH :-)

(I finally posted a thread which is about time! I have been lurking reading all these posts and learning a lot! :) )

[rastachris]

My husband is bi-racial and I am white. We adopted our son (17 months) from Haiti, and our daughter (9 weeks) is black and was adopted domestically through American Adoptions.

We were not an "active" family with American Adoptions and had not signed any contracts with them, but we had been in contact with one of their social workers who knew we were looking to adopt a black or bi-racial child. In the time it took for our son to come home from Haiti, we probably could have adopted multiple times through American Adoptions. We talked with them about a baby boy due last September (birth mother chose to parent), and they let us know about twin AA girls due in February who needed a to be matched with a family. Two weeks later they contacted us about our daugther and we now have our beautiful girl home with us. I was on a plane to pick her up within a week after hearing about her. (In our case, the birth mother wanted a closed adoption and left it up to the agency to match. Our daughter was 9 days old when we were contacted by American Adoptions).

Please check out their website to look through all of the "situations" they currently have - birth mothers who are being shown to active families, and birth mothers who have not been matched with any of the active families and still need a match. If you are wanting a black or a bi-racial child, American Adoptions is always looking for families ready, willing and able to adopt them.

They were a bit on the expensive side (our daughter's adoption was just under $20K, not including travel), but EVERYTHING that our social worker said would happen did happen when and how she said it would, including ICPC. There were no hidden or surprise expenses, and we finalize in our daugther's birth state in less than two weeks.

Bethany Christian Services did our stateside home study and they are also wonderful, and they did tell us that couples interested in black or bi-racial babies do generally have a shorter wait but they made no promises on how long.

I probably sound like I'm advertising for these agencies, but I'm just trying to share our positive experiences with both of the agencies involved in our adoption. We were very pleased and we recommend them to everyone interested in adoption.

Good luck!

[dkbw]

Hi

Rastachris I sent you a PM would like to talk with you about American Adoptions.

Thanks
DKBW

[Aneni]

From an agency perspective, here's what insight I can offer:

1. Not all agencies charge large upfront fees. If you contact one that does, consider continuing to look around til you find one that doesn't. The agency with which I was affiliated charged a very modest application fee ($50) and the home study fee up front. Then there were no fees until and unless a couple was placed with an infant.

2. Ask the agencies if you can apply with more than one agency. We deliberately set our application fee low in order to make it easy for prospective adoptive families to apply with more than one agency. (Both #1 and #2 held true for all of our prospective adoptive families, not just those who were open to adopting an AA or AA/CC child.)

3. As you already know, there are many, many agencies interested in couples who would welcome an AA/CC or AA infant into their families. In my experience, it was not so much that we wanted to hurry such couples along in their application/home assessment process (unless we had an imminent placement), but we did want to know of couples that were placement-ready or in the process in the event we did have a possible placement.

4. Also, not everyone knows that if one is interested in adopting a child through a state children's agency, you don't have to look only in your county or even only in your state. (Sometimes a local worker will mistakenly say you do, but if you call the agency's "central office" policy folks, you'll get the correct info on same.)

5. By the same token, there's no reason to limit yourself to applying with a private adoption agency only in your state.

I hope this is helpful,