[jillned]

Hello..............We are in the (waiting to be matched) process of adopting. We are open to race and would like to chat with other familes in or around Will County that have trans racial families. While this is not new to me or my side of the family, my husbands family (parents?) seem opposed to this idea. I'm trying to hear from others that have had difficult times with family members and how you handled the situtation. We are very excited at the thought of becoming parents and wish that everyone in our family felt the same. Look forward to earing from you.

[RSHARPE]

hello, I was adopted in 1969 to a white couple in upstate newyork i happen to be of mixed races, irish and italian , black , which i just found out . I can remember my grandmother on my dad side not really talking to me our giving me love like the other grand kids, but at the time my parents and other family member gave me much love. in the 60's it was much worse than it is now . Just give the child that God blesses you with alot of love and everything eles will follow, and make sure what ever race the child is you are blessed with have his our her heritge involved in your live. WISH you the best and good luck!

[Mamato2]

We are a white couple with one biological daugther and we just adopted a bi-racial 16 month old girl from Ukraine. We are actually still in Ukraine..we leave Mon. to head home!

Anyway, we live in Will county (Plainfield). To be honest we had no idea that we would be adopting a bi-racial child. We thought by coming to Ukraine we would more than likely find a Caucasian child but God works in mysterious ways I guess! Our daughter turned out to be half African American half Caucasian and we fell in love with her instantly. We have no idea how family, friends and our community are going to react so it will be interesting to find out. As I said, adopting a AA/CC child in Ukraine is not something we thought would happen so we will now be educating ourselves to find the best way to raise our daughter, not only as an adopted child but as a bi-racial adopted child being raised in a CC family.

As I said, we will be home soon. Feel free to contact me any time.
Just PM me and I can give you my e-mail address.

Good luck to you.

Sincerely,
Shannon

[iwannabamommy]

I am the proud adoptive mom of a beautiful little boy. His birthmom is 1/2 German, 1/4 Russian and 1/4 Polish. She swore his birthfather was 100% Sicillian, but we are not so sure.

I have many friends who are AA and Hispanic and all say he is neither, however we can't help but wonder. He is the most beautful little boy and we just do not want to deny him any heritage. Everyone says don't worry, but how can I not. I wouldn't care if he was purple with pink polka dots, I just would like him to know. Hubby and I were open with race when we started the process and will be again for the next adoption. However we would like a girl next time. We have always wanted one of each and then to adopt two older children, possibly siblings.

If adoption weren't so expensive we would have half a dozen children!!

Any advice is greatly appreciated. We are in Joliet

[icunurse]

jillned- while we were open to different races, our son turned out to be English/Irish/Polish, so I can't really help you with your questions about transracial adoption here in Will County (I live in New Lenox). But, on a positive note, I have been seeing more and more families with transracial adoptions out here, so you are not alone.

iwannabeamommy- not sure if this helps any, but I have a close friend who is Polish/Italian (lots of Sicilian) and she truly looks biracial (many people think so....I did until I found out otherwise). Just something to consider.

[iwannabamommy]

Thanks for your reply. You are in New Lenox..I am in Joliet. Since starting the process of adoption I too have noticed alot more transracial families in our area.

Like I have said in other posts I would love my son if he was purple with pink polka dots he is my son no matter what color his skin!!

[icunurse]

Exactly. Though, if he was purple with pink polka dots, I would definitely want to see him!

I know it was scary for us, at first, to consider raising a child of a different race than ours (whether AA, Hispanic, Asian, etc.), but I think it is becoming more acceptable and common in the area. I think we were/are more concerned with respecting the heritage and giving a child a chance to blend in with the crowd (like most kids want to anyway). Where we live, there aren't a lot of AA and we aren't in the position to move, so we didn't think it was fair to bring an AA child here. Our agency had a class about Transracial Adoption (there's an online version, too, for anyone interested) that gave things to consider about the effects it would have on both your family and the child.

[jillned]

I would love to learn more about the online version of the class about transracial families................you can never be to prepared, lol! Let me know the name or website etc.

Thanks!!

[icunurse]

The site is www.adoptionlearningpartners.org The classes they offer are free unless you want a "Certificate of Completion" for continued learning credit. They also have classes about the tax credit, attachment, etc.