[Vogi2002]

I have a question...and please I am so sorry if i offend anyone. I am so new with all of this i feel so naive talking to people about it yet. My dh and I have been ttc for over three years, no success. During this three years we have given up, and decided to adopt about three times, and each time something miraculously would get better so we would ttc again (sperm count was the latest). Well, after two - three months of ttc again, we would find OTHER problems. The last time we stopped trying and decided to adopt I knew dh wasn't ready yet...but i was SO ready, but then we ttc again because his count got miraculously better, and now I am having problems again with ME. So, I am DONE with ttc..emotionally, physically, everything. I talked to dh and I believe he is now ready also. He is excited, accepting, wanting to know more. Plus, he wants to find out more information on biracial adoption (before he was against this as we are both CC and he was afraid of the "unknown" as he puts it now, but i just think he wasn't ready for any kind of adoption at that time) Now though, he seems to have changed. I believe the last TTC gave him a little bit of closure..

My sister was adopted 14 yrs ago at 6 months and has quadraplegic cerebal palsy, she is AA and the light of our lives. So, i have grown up with her and seen how much it really doesn't matter what skin color someone is. I also know some of the basics regarding how to treat AA skin/ hair/ etc. But for some reason, I feel drawn to adopting a AA or biracial baby. I do not expect to rescue them or have them "grown up to be white" (as a man told my parents they were doing to my sister...mind you she is the happiest little girl in the world!).

Anyway, again, i am so sorry if I am using language that i shouldn't be....but I would like to know if anyone else out there was a little iffey on biracial adoption and what made you decide to adopt biracially or AA. I would LOVE to adopt a AA or Biracial baby and want to get information for DH. How does having a child of a different race affect raising him/her? Do you ever regret it (i know most of your answers to this one ;-) )? What advice would you give? How did your dh's take it? Were they immediately receptive or unsure? How do your dh's feel about it after you adopted or started the adoption process? Is there any other information you can give me regarding this? What agency did you use? Was it quick or very expensive? Thank you so much for reading this!!

Natalie Runyan

[joskimo]

well congratulations on your decision! I'm sure everyone's story is different but here's ours. We initially started the adoption process going for a state adoption. Because my husband is 1/2 Eskimo we really thought we'd have a native placement. How our state works is that they pay for 1/2 the homestudy and then you give our state 3 months exclusive to place - if no placement then you can use the homestudy for other states or domestic. So our state failed to place, in fact the phone never rang once, so we started looking at other states and saw the overwhelming number of AA children on the waiting child web sites. We felt very drawn to all of the children, for my husband and I, race is a non-issue. The only real caveat was that our bio daughter was adamant that we not adopt a CC baby. Well working with other states never panned out either so we finially went straight domestic. We partnered with a facilitator who specializes in AA and BiR infants (who was refered to me off this site) and we were matched 7 weeks later and our daughter was born 7 weeks after that.

Like you indicated, it's important to me that our daughter not be "raised white". Of course in our family, we're a tri-racial household. We hope to make her as proud of her heritage as our older daughter is of hers. I think all we can do is our best and to know that no one's childhood is perfect. My husband was transracially adopted and although he doesn't have a great affinity to his heritage, it doesn't make him mad or feel like he has a hole inside him, it's part of who he is and it's his life experience.

I wish you luck -

Jo

[LisaCA]

hi there,

I'm AA and adopted an AA child so I can't help you here, other than to suggest that you might find info on Pact's website. they discuss the issue of race and adoption, and you and your husband might find some answers (and a number of questions) there.

http://www.pactadopt.org/press/articles

good luck!

Lisa

[traceyk]

Welcome !!! We adopted AA and I will answer your questions to help you better understand where we are at.

How does having a child of a different race affect raising him/her? So far it hasn't affected her that I can tell, but she is still only 7 mo. old. Do you ever regret it (i know most of your answers to this one ;-) )? NOT FOR ONE MOMENT!!!!! What advice would you give? Make sure you talk deeply so you are both on the same page. Read books on transracial and AA adoption so you are educated. How did your dh's take it? My hubby loves her to pieces! She is definately Daddy's Girl! Were they immediately receptive or unsure? When I brought it up he said it sounded like the best choice for us as we have a very open and diverse extended family as it is. How do your dh's feel about it after you adopted or started the adoption process? He hasn't waivered and we are talking about adopting AA again since it went so fast and smoothly. Is there any other information you can give me regarding this? What agency did you use? I will PM you this info! Was it quick or very expensive?it was 12,000 and we brought our baby home from the hospital within 2 weeks of signing with the placement agency!!!

[Nevada Jen]

Hi, we adopted transracially. We are CC and our son is AA/CC. We spent a couple of years going back and forth between international adoption and trying to conceive. After our last bout with trying to conceive we sat down and figured out what was important to us. We decided that the most important thing to us was the health of the child (very iffy in international adoption and even more iffy if we conceived on our own). The next most important thing was having a newborn (because we largely missed that with our disabled daughter). Finally, the time it would take to have a child in our home was important because our daughter is 7. It just sort of hit us that race was not at all important. We were already a conspicous family because of our disabled CC daughter. Plus I have 4 adopted sibling from Vietnam. We decided that domestic adoption of an AA child was the best way to meet these criteria. Because there is a need for parents for AA children who thought we could be more picky about prenatal history to increase our chances of having a healthy child and the wait would be shortened.

We were planning on using a local agency for our homestudy and then an out of state agency that specialized in AA children as our placement agency. The homestudy process took forever. After 4 months and still at least 2 to go before the homestudy was finished so that we could be officially waiting, our local agency called with a baby born situation from a bmom that had placed before. We were the only people who were even in process who were willing to accept a baby with any AA heritage. We threw all caution to the wind and said yes and now have a wonderful 4 month old son. In a way, we do not regret it for a minute (because we would not have OUR son otherwise). But I do regret the cost (which probably did not need to be so high) and that we agreed to a closed adoption with no info at all on the birth father (at the birthmother's request). Not that I would change the final outcome and I do not regret anything related to him being AA.

My husband handles the transracial part different than me. He really thinks it does not matter. This is reinforced by the fact that our son does not look particularly AA. I think that it does matter that our son is part AA and worry and plan constantly how that will affect him later in life and how we can make sure that we don't turn him white -- to use your phrase-- and that we teach him to love his AA side also.

I do think that it is becoming noticeably more common for white folks to adopt AA babies even in the past 6 months. Some people have waited more than a year for an AA baby. You should also prepare yourself that there are many out there both CC and AA who feel that AA babies should only be adopted by AA people. OUr agency definately leaned this way and we had to do some convincing. Pact leans this way as well. But of all the AA people we have met and know, they think it is wonderful that we have DS and he has us.

Jen

[quiescentfury]

Hi Natalie. My husband and ate are CC and we plan to adopt a AA or AA/CC child. We made this choice because I have a biracial son from a previous relationship. We feel that adopting a AA or AA/CC child it will give someone in our home that Cory can relate to. Cory does see his father regularly, but it would be nice to have another child in our home that looks more like him.

Also, this is something that our son wants. While TTC my SIL asked Cory want kind of baby did he want us to have. She was meaning a girl or boy, but to our surprise he said he wanted a brown brother. He was four at the time. We explained at the time that if DH and I have a child it would be white. We discussed how people get their skin color. Now, two years later we are adopting. When we first started to look into adoption Cory again said he wants a Brown brother or sister. We thought this would be an excellent idea.

How does having a child of a different race affect raising him/her? We have a lot of talks about color and why people are different colors and how all people are beautiful. We also make sure that we have things in our home that he can relate to, such as books, movies, and toys that have children of his color in them. Also there are questions from other children. This started aboutt year ago. They are trying to figure out why Cory is brown. They usually only see my DH and I pick him up from school and are trying to understand why he is brown and we are white. They have other AA nad AA/CC kids in their class, but they see that at least one parent is AA.

Do you ever regret it No, not at all. We are really looking forward to bringing a AA or AA/CC child into our home.

What advice would you give? I agree that you and your husband need to be on the same page. When you adopt talk openly about differences and alikeness. I know people who don't talk about the fact that there child does not look like them. In our family we celebrate our diffrences. Again I also strongly suggest that there are people in your life and symbols in your home that look like your child.

How did your dh's take it? My husband is still dealing a little with the idea he may never have a bio child. That has been hard for him. Even though he is dealing with this he is very excited about bringing another child into our home and is very happy with the idea of a AA or AA/CC child.

Were they immediately receptive or unsure? My husband was very receptive to the race, it was the idea of adoption in general that took him awhile to get on board. My DH soounds like yours. I was ready to move to adoption before he was.

How do your dh's feel about it after you adopted or started the adoption process? His feelings have not chaged, well actually they are stronger now towards an AA or AA/CC child.

Is there any other information you can give me regarding this? What agency did you use? I will PM you.

Was it quick or very expensive? We were quoted 8-12,000. We have been presented with 2 situations since finishing our paperwork less than a month ago. Neither has panned out.

Hope this helps.

[Poolside]

Congratulations on deciding to adopt. It's a wonderful rollercoaster journey. I have been thinking about your question for a half an hour, so here goes:
We didn't decide to adopt transracially, it's just that our daughter is bi-racial, and we are CC, so we adopted transracially by default. Now I know that might sound dumb, but sometimes, you might hear the advice.. "your child will find you". We truly believe that. Then and now. We talked about and thought about all the options, and our hearts were open to God's plan. When we filled out all the paperwork, we were non-specific about race. We started down the path of NOT being the couple that says: "we want blonde hair, blue eyes, thin mom, freckles, tall dad, etc.." We left it up to God. When we were waiting for her to arrive, we didn't know if she would be bi-racial or not, and it never mattered. We just knew we were waiting for our daughter. It's just an amazing feeling to know your child will arrive eventually. She is everything to us.
Welcome to the forums.

[Vogi2002]

Okay, I just wanted to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for all of your wonderful help. Maybe it's the hormones wearing off from last month of ttc, but it really brought tears to my eyes. You have all been very helpful, understanding, and extrememly forgiving of my "naivity". I am so excited to share all of this with my dh. Those who have PM'ed me with your agency THANKS! If anyone else can share anything about who you used, if you would use them again, that would help! Now we have one big bump in the road. We are both only 22 years old (will be 23 in march). Very steady careers, married for three years plus years, great home, etc. But some agencies won't let you adopt until you are 25...and I really don't wait to wait two - three more years. (I hope that doesn't sound selfish)

Again, thank you very much for all of your help and I can't wait to hear more!!

Natalie

[quiescentfury]

Hi Natalie. While there are many agency that do require you to be 25 or older, there are many that do not have that requirement. You may have to research more agencies than others had to. DH and I are in a similar situation, not because of age, but because of length of marriage. Many agencies required 2 - 3 years and we have only been married 18 months. We did find a lot of dead ends when it came to agencies, but we also found some excellent agencies willing to work with us. Hang in there and do your research, you will find an agancy right for you.

[rredhead]

Hi!

First, I love this forum, because I learn so much! DH and I have just matched (2 weeks ago) with a pbmom who is CC/AA, and her baby's father is AA. If all goes well, we'll be bringing our son home in January.

How does having a child of a different race affect raising him/her?
This is one of the questions I've wanted to ask, too. As we're still waiting, I don't know, but I do know that my husband bought over $100 worth of CDs by AA entertainers. He's adamant that we expose our child to traditionally Black culture, via music, comedy, books, and so on. I'm also on the look out for books, toys, etc. that present many different colors of people. I'd do this for a CC child too, but it has a different urgency as we're having an AA/CC child.

What advice would you give?
READ. I still haven't read all of the books yet. I have 2 books: I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla and Our Those Kids Yours? I haven't read them yet, but I will before January.
One book that many people recommend is Black Baby, White Hands, A View from the Crib. I found this book to be badly written, repetitive, and overwrought. However, there are actually some really useful thoughts in there. This book is a memoir by an AA man who was adopted in New Mexico in 1967.

How did your dh's take it?
It was DH's idea. I was on the fence, because there are legitimate concerns with raising a child of a different culture. Max has biracial cousins (his aunt married an AA man, which took the family a little time getting used to, but now they're all cool with it). He brought up the idea of adopting a baby of any race.

Is there any other information you can give me regarding this?
There's a Yahoo group called Transracial Adoption and Placement. They're a great resource.
There are already certain stereotypes we're facing. After learning that one couple who was interested in us was full AA, we were asked by our moms if they were on drugs.

What agency did you use?
PMd you about that.

Was it quick or very expensive?
Yes, to both. We signed 5 months ago, and should be bringing baby home in January, for 8 months total. But the cost will end up being probably $18K. We're looking forward to that tax credit, but it'll be worth it all.

Hope this helps!
-Robyn

Thank you so much for reading this!!

[sshears]

My daughter is AA and my husband and I could not be whiter if we tried We signed up with an agency that had a minority program, we figured since we didn't care what race the baby was, as long as we got a healthy happy baby we may as well use this program. I know how you feel though, we certainly didn't want to be "the great white hope" to a baby, we just wanted a family. We were put at peace by the birthmom. She chose us, and that is all we needed to be reassured. Now comes the hard part...It became very clear that raising a AA baby is so much more then haircare. We live in an area lacking in diversity to say the least. A few months ago we went in search of a cultural utopia so to speak, and are planning to mave to London, England to give our daughter some diversity. It is a day to day learning experience for all of us, but it sounds like you have a good foundation having grown up with an AA sister. the really good news...we waited for a grand total of zero days to placement, and then 10 days to the birth of our daughter. It cost around $15K without travel. Our agency was awful though, so don't use Edited Cograts and very good luck to you!

Sarah

[tracyangel]

My hubby and I (both CC) decided to go for an AA adoption because there are many more babies to adopt, and we didn't want to wait - we wanted to be young parents. We live in Chicago land, which is extremely diverse, have a diverse group of friends, live in a diverse neighborhood. Black culture has always been a big part of our lives - we have favorite actors & actresses (hello - Denzel or Halle anyone?), love R&B (my husband is in love with Alicia Keyes and we've seen R Kelly in concert twice in the last 3 years), laugh like crazy at comedians like Chris Rock (who can be racist, but is REALLY funny), etc....

For us, our main goal was to become a family. When a AA birthmom chose us, it was a compliment that she believed we could give our daugher a good life. She was impressed by our love for my (large) family (which is all local), our passion for vacationing & discovering new places, spending time outdoors with our 2 retrievers, and living life to the fullest. The race of the baby that we brought home was not a deciding factor - the fact that we fell in love with our daughter at first sight in the nursery, and that we hit it off with the bmom were the deciding factors for us.

We also ran into a few snags initially in our adoption process because we were young (25 when we first applied, married for 1 year). Our social worker considered that young and made us jump through extra hoops to prove that we were mature enough to be parents. We took it in stride, and got through the home study process eventually. We are now 27, our daughter is 8 months old, and we will celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary in May. I think that agencies will work with you, you just may have to provide more information and go the extra mile to prove that you're solid as a couple. But once you get through all the paperwork hassle, the end result is so very sweet, and so very worth it!

[ILuvMyGirls]

Hi! Reading your post brought back so many memories! My dh and I were in almost the exact same position as you with the age thing. I was 21 and he was 23 when we decided we wanted to adopt. It really sucks that most agencies won't let you adopt until you are a certain age. I mean, just because we're young doesn't mean we won't be good parents, right?! Anyway, we found an agency in Florida that didn't have an age limit and we had our daughter within 2 months. It cost us $10,700 to adopt her (very low compared to some) and we brought her home when she was 6 days old. We have never regretted our decision for one moment! Not even when our (surprise!) bio daughter was born 7 months later! Anyway, I hope this was helpful.