[anarchamama]

Ok here is my question, I hope its not to wierd. I am a canadien and so my knowledge of the american adoption scene is somewhat limited. My partner and I are seriously ocnsidering adopting a AA or MR infant form the US. In canada or a healthy infant of any race the wait is insane as there are so few placed, due to a small (compared to the US) population. It seems to me there is a need for adoptive families of non CC children in the US (more babies than families) butI find it hard to believe this is true? I am able to have bio kids so if there is not a real need I don't want to persue it. Are there really healthy infants who end up in the foster system in the US because there are not enough adoptive families willing to take them? Or would we just be adding our names to a list of people who want to adopt, making the waits for everyone even longer.

Heather

[vernellinnj]

IMHO there are many foster/adoptive families waiting to adopt healthy infants from the US fostercare system as there is no cost. However, again (IMHO) there are not enough families willing to adopt AA or MR infants through private agencies as the fees are often a barrier and sometimes there are cultural reasons why people of color don't "formally" adopt.

Again, my humble opinion. I'll be interested to hear others thoughts.

[DebCsMom]

I believe it is true that there is a greater need for families wanting to adopt AA children than CC children. We are a CC couple with 2 bio children. We adopt a Biracial girl, AA girl & AA boy all in less than 4 years! The cost of all 3 was probably what we would have had for one CC child!! We have been asked MANY times to adopt in between them also. There is a greater need for infants as well as for older children who are AA or MR.

Deb

[hotspice58]

There is a need for families for infants and children of color. There are barriers just to being a person of color in this country and adopting takes more energy than people of color have. Society does not make it easy to be AA. AA/CC or multi.

[jaenelle]

We are *still* looking at a wait of between 3 and 9 months to adopt and we are open to ANY race. It's more like 18 months for a white baby through our agency. So I would say that if anything there is a shortage of babies, not of parents.

[Fran27]

It's true that it's easier and faster to adopt an AA baby in the US, but there is still a wait - ie, no shortage of families.

[traceyk]

We had four situations within 2 weeks of signing with our agency so apparently there weren't that many families open to AA babies.

[jaenelle]

We were told by our agency that we will be the only family in the agency open to AA, but there aren't very many families working with that agency and apparently they don't get very many birthmothers either, so that, I think, accounts for the wait they are estimating for us.

[gdaisy]

We have been "waiting" for over a year.. We have been open to any race of child .. biracial, CC, Poly, Asian, etc.. But it seems that in Idaho there is a shortage of all types of infants to adopt.. Our agency is nationwide so you would think that there would be more exposure..

[denisenw5]

I work for an agency that does domestic adoptions. We are always looking for families open to African-American and biracial infants. If we do not have a family, then we work with other agencies with available families or we refer the potential birth parent to another agency. The other agencies we typically work with typically only have a few families as well, which leads to less of a choice in the potential birth parent's situation. Back to the poster's original question though, we have never placed an infant of any race in foster care because we could not find a family. We just had to look outside of our agency.

[DebCsMom]

We worked with a referral service so we had NO problems getting matched quickly! Our longest wait from homestudy acceptance to the childs birth was a couple of months! We were told not enough families willing to adopt AA & MR children. We had many calls even while matched making sure we were still matched, just in case!

Deb

[rredhead]

From everything I've read and learned from books, articles, and friends who have adopted, there is a drastic shortage of families to adopt a child of AA descent. Our agency (which I do not recommend) told us that they had to turn away potential birth moms of AA babies. We had 3 situations presented within 5 months of signing, and Jack was born 01/2006, within 9 months of signing.
From articles that I have read, it appears that there are many people who may want to become foster parents or to adopt through their respective states, but the foster systems in most states are in such disarray that a large percentage of those people find themselves waiting for a call that never comes.
We went through a private agency, and there was not a decrease in price because Jack is AA/CC, although some agencies do discount the fees in an attempt to make adopting an AA baby more affordable (but I wonder what message does that send to the birthparents and to the kids themselves?).
I hope this helps in some way.

Good luck!
-Rmc

[AbqLiz]

The answer as to whether or not there is a shortage of families who want to adopt an AA or biracial child depends very much on how you define a family. I have spoken to many agencies, ones that will only work with heterosexual, married couples, that cannot find families for AA or biracial babies. The agency I am working with, which is quite progressive and works with single parents, older parents and gay couples, has a 15-20 month wait for an AA infant.


There is no shortage of people who would love to adopt AA or biracial babies. There is a shortage of agencies that are open to working with a greater variety of prospective adoptive parents.

[traceyk]

Maybe it has something to do with the agencies as well because our is in Dallas with two other offices within the area and I know of three other families that got their full AA babies within 3 weeks of signing. Like I said, I had three initial situations to choose from and we ended up having a failed placement and then 3 days later Drihan came into our lives. And these babies were all born the same day

[Munchikin]

Heather,

We are Canadians who adopted a healthy newborn AA baby from the USA nearly 2 years ago. We got so many babies proposed to us in a very short time that we were saddened that it was that hard to place them in the USA. From the start of our homestudy, to the day our baby came home, was less than 6 months. There are MANY healthy newborn AA babies that need families, and I just hope that the USA continues to allow the babies to be adopted out of the USA.

We will soon be applying for to adopt again, and we were told that we will mostlikely have a match within weeks of application.

If you would like to know more, I will help you all I can, this is my email; nudipatuti@yahoo.com