[LorynJohn]

Really trying to find a group where I feel I belong. I posted on an ENTIRELY different web site and I was essentially ostrosized from the site. I wrote that we were "considering the adoption of a biracial baby". This offended one of the moms and she made a real stink over it. She felt that I shouldnt "consider" it--we should just adopt "a child" and not specify biracial. In all honesty I didnt uderstand what I did that was so wrong. BUT I never felt comfortable to post there again. BUT I would really like to find SOMEPLACE where I can post and have my thoughts and fears addressed rather than just made to feel bad.

My husband and I are OVER the moon with excitement on the recent approval of our adoption!! we just got our letter a week ago. Think I might frame the official letter!

We are the parents of 5y/o bio twin boys. We tried to add to our family and God led us to adoption and we are both thrilled!!

Never having adopted before Ive got SO many questions and thoughts. Our agency has been WONDERFUL with answering my questions but there are some that I would just like to ask of other parents.

We are cc couple and we will be adopting a bi racial baby. There is so much to learn and understand. Thoughts and questions fly through my mind and Ive got NO ONE to ask----

Is this somewhere that I can find some answers to my questions??

Hope I found home! xoL

[katlyn]

LorynJohn,
Wish you all the best with your adoption....I think you have definitely found a home here, there are many many wonderfully supportive and helpful ppl here. As with any place however, there may be a few sour grapes in the bunch . Again, congratulation's on the hopefully soon to be newest addition to your family!

[maxkinzie]

This is a great place, most people are more than happy to help thru the process. We adopted a beautiful AA girl at birth 2 yrs ago and she is just the greatest blessing!!!

I wonder why you are not considering full AA, only because some full AA are lighter in skin color than bi-racial. just something to think about.

Hair...for as fast as our process went, and our getting "the call" to come get our daughter the morning after I finished my degree (!!!), I was 100% ignorant on the hair/skin care thing. Our DD started out with soft silky hair and now has the tight dry curls. I had a lot of learning to do, fast! But it can be done, it' just different. There's a great book out called "It's All Good Hair". There's also lots of great threads here you can go back and read.

Good Luck! Let us know what happens

[LorynJohn]

Thank you both for this nice welcome! I think this looks like a great place to be!

Maxkenzie---you have PEAKED my curiosity!! Im really curious about what you said.....sometimes full AA can be darker than biracial. Can you elaborate?? If its an AA/cc combination wouldnt the child be a lighter color skin??

And another question along those lines....I met a woman at the airport one day---we stuck up a conversation with each other about her daughter. Her daughter was an adopted biracial baby---gorgeous! beautiful milk chocolate skin and brilliant BLUE eyes! Stunning! The mom said that her ** was a very fair skinned scandinavian cc and the bd was AA--

I think my question is----is the resulting "look" (for lack of a better word) based on the skin tone of the cc partner??

I think I need to also say that I hope and PRAY I dont offend anyone with my questions. Believe me when I say I already love the child that will come to us via adoption! I dont care if she is green with polka dots. I think Im simply CURIOUS about this. Sort of like when you have a gift wrapped in front of you. You are SO excited to open it and see what you have been given. You ask questions about what MIGHT be inside. WAY over simplifying with this ananlogy---I just want to convey that my intentions are pure and that Im simply excited to learn as much as I can about our future child.

Thanks for ANY input!! xoL

[tinktink]

Hi. I sent you a pm.

[maxkinzie]

I just meant that if you take a CC and an AA person and they have a baby, there's a HUGE range of possibilities for the resulting color. Same if you have 2 AA's, a recessive light-skin gene might surface and you'd get a very light skinned child. Recessive and Dominant genes, you can increase the chances of a particular outcome by studying these, but there's no rules involved. There was a thread here a while ago that addressed AA vs Bi-Racial and the wide wide range of colors. Maybe you know this already, but many full AA babies are born with very very light skin, DD could've passed for caucasion in dim light for a short while.

As for offending with your questions...I'd rather read offensive questions (not yours in my opinion), and have the asker understand why something might be an issue. Several years ago I posed a question, dont' remember it now, but it was an innocent question that set a few people off. I was hurt, but, remember being glad I "learned" here instead of actually doing something ignorantly stupid. I wished a few people would have been nicer about it, after all we'd never adopted before and were trying to be educated about it, but adoption can be an emotionally charged issue, on all sides. The moderators here seem pretty on top of innapropriate "talk". The good faaaar outweighs the negative, and the help I've gotten here has been both eye opening and priceless. Had I adopted without input here, I would have severely shortchanged myself, and my child, and her BirthMom

Again, welcome! and do ask!

[loveajax]

Loryn, my DD is biracial. I specifically said that I was open to a biracial child and not a fully AA child. I have to say that that may be viewed as "racist," but my best friend is biracial (and another good friend of mine is biracial) so I felt that would be helpful to me and to any child I raised in terms of questions I could ask, mentoring, etc.

I am very much like you. I personally don't think about skin color very much, etc. But I have started to realize that it IS important to recognize that your whole family will be a family "of color," etc. and that you have to prepare your other kids for that, etc. As much as I am a "color-blind" advocate, I do realize that kids who are, e.g., biracial or AA, etc., need to realize how beautiful their heritage, skin color, etc. is.

Re: hair. That's one of the most "talked about" topics on transracial adopts as I can tell. I can say that DD had very little hair, then straight hair, and now has "shirley temple" curls. Even thought they are soft, I have to "manage" them with detangler, etc. Your child could have very fine hair or tighter curls, etc....Believe me, you will figure out how to care for it.

RE: skin color. I do not think anyone should ever think that their child will be "darker," "lighter," etc. if they choose to adopt a biracial or AA child. I HAVE read that a child who is AA/CC can never be darker than the AA parent, but I am not sure if that is true. The reality is (I know you are new to the process), you have to be prepared if you are adopting a biracial child that that child will have darker skin than you, have hair different than yours, etc...

Anyway, I also think it is imporant to ask all the qs you want! GOOD LUCK!

[musemoon]

I am a CC parent who asked for any race, but prefered bi-racial because I was white and I thought if the child was more than one race, we were all mixed up anyway....so why not have fun :-)

I am now the mother of the most beautiful bi-racial child I have ever seen (but I may be biased :-*) She has very dark skin and tight curls.

When I picked her up at the hospital she was a pale tawny color with straight hair, she is now a very deep brown with black eyes and tight dry curls that I use degangler and lotion on. She is a beauty. She is also darker than all my full AA friend's children. In winter she is lighter (but still darker than my AA friend's kids :-) and in summer she's an awesome savage tan :-)

You never know what you gonna get with color, CC children can be pink, yellow, brownish....you never know.

Just love the child you get.

[traceyk]

We did full AA only and it was the best decision we ever made. We brought Drihan home with in 2 weeks of signing and she is so spoiled by DH,me and our two teens. She is the light of this family and have had a very positive experience so far. Drihan's b-mother is light brown as with her whole family, we have no idea about b-father, he unknown. Needless to say she is dark. Drihan looks nothing like her b-mom either (we saw a pic of her) although she has the grey eyes that run in "F's" side. i also brestfed her for 9 mo. until she weaned herself. Don't let anyone get in the way of your dreams!!!!

[teranga]

There are a lot of ways an AA/CC baby could be darker than an AA/AA baby. For one, if you look at people in the AA community (and in Africa itself) you will see there is a huge range of skin color. If you have a very dark African or AA and a CC, their child could easily be much darker than an AA child from 2 AAs who are lighter skinned.

Also, given not only personal choices, but also the history of slavery in our country, there are many full AA people who do have CC in them as well through rape, etc.. Yes, this was long ago, but it can still come through with a lighter child than might be otherwise expected.

Your friend who has a blue eyed biracial child...there is some sort of CC in the AA parent in that case. A blue eyed child can only be born when BOTH parents carry the recessive blue eyed gene. Here's how it works (the basic version): you have 2 genes for eyes--you get one from you dad, one from your mom. If you get a 'blue eyed' gene from each of them, you will have blue eyes (or some variation--grey, green). If you get one blue eyed gene and one brown eyed gene, you will have brown eyes (100% of the time), as brown is the dominant gene. If you get 2 brown eyed genes, you will have brown eyes. In order for that child to have blue eyes, the AA parent must have passed on a blue eyed gene to the child. If the AA parent had brown eyes, then he must have had one brown eyed gene (dominant) and one blue eyed gene (recessive) and passed on the blue eyed gene. Black Africans do not have a blue eyed gene, which means somewhere along the line, probably from some time here in the U.S., there is CC in that person's line. So...even when someone has 2 AA parents, it doesn't mean there isn't CC in their history.

Our son is Ethiopian, and he is very light skinned. There are other adopted Ethiopian kids I know who are VERY dark. Huge variation by ethnic group. Same in many African nations. In Senegal the Pulaars are very light, the Wolofs are very dark, etc.

I think it's great to ask athe questions and to assess your own comfort level. I guess I'd just say be sure you are open to a very dark skinned child, even when specifying AA/CC child.

Good luck and welcome!!

Teranga

[Hadley2]

This is far from my usual haunt (got pulled in by the teaser on the forum menu page), so if I repeat something that is commonly said on this forum, I apologize.

To the OP--I feel curiousity is great and recognize that it can, however, lead to misunderstandings that are sometimes hurtful or upsetting to others. More and more these days, we hear about the "browning" of America. I think that probably for awhile many people will be trying to mentally organize others by race and be confused when the answer is like the old Lee Middleton "play baby girl doll ethnic." At some point, we will just be who we are and not a what....

Anyway, just wanted to remind everyone that race is a CULTURAL concept and has NO basis in biology. "Biracial" and "full AA" are cultural and personal perceptions, not genetic or biological facts. The fact is, everyone on the planet is "multiracial"....

Populations that live and mix for many generations within geographical or cultural boundaries will tend to see some traits become more common. All human traits, however, have the potential for being expressed in any population. Think of it in the negative way: antennae are not a human trait and would never be expressed in any population. Blue eyes are a human trait and can be expressed, carried or introduced into any population.

In a novel I read once (I think it was an Oprah selection), a little girl on Martha's Vineyard was lost. Everyone on the island was looking for a little "AA" girl, and no one noticed the blue-eyed, blond, curly-haired youngster wandering around....

Just a few years ago, a "white" mom at our DD's gym had a "white" husband and a clearly AA child. Most people assumed the child was adopted even though it was plain as day to me that her mother's facial features were clearly stamped on her little self. She was her mom's biological child and it was nobody's business "where that hair came from."

Whether or not an individual or family identifies as "biracial" or "full AA," ESPECIALLY in the United States, which has hundreds of years of "mixing," is a matter of personal choice and family tradition and culture.

It may be that a family that identifies as "white" (most aren't actually Caucasian, unless their ancestors came from the Caucasus) may find it easier to deal with the cultural balance of both "black" and "white" and so might prefer a child whose family identifies as biracial or identifies the child as biracial due to more recent family history.

What makes a child of a "black" dad and "white" mom more "biracial" than the "black" dad whose ancestors were "mixed" 300 years ago? Perception, culture and tradition, not genetics.

Lighter, darker, browner, yellower, redder, duskier; smoother, coarser, nappier; taller, shorter; full featured, aquiline, etc.--these things are determined by the particular genetics of the individuals, not their self- or socially identified racial culture.

Good luck with your adoption journey. Just keep in mind that you are delving more into culture than biology and will probably find more helpful questions and answers there.

[ocracoke]

Full AA versus bi-racial is hard to determine skin color. I adopted from Ethiopia and my daughter is fairly dark. However, I have noticed some of my friends who have adopted from Ethiopia have children that are fairly light skinned -- almost look bi-racial. I have a friend who is hispanic but can pass as cc (until she opens her mouth and you hear her heavy spanish accent) and her full blooded sister is often mistaken as AA. You just never know.

Samantha

[dragonfly1234]

I just wanted to welcome you to the forum. There are many great people here! Congrats on your wonderful journey you are beginning. Just be confident in the direction you choose.

Michelle

[ocracoke]

dragon---
Your boys are beautiful!! It is the first time I have seen pictures of them.

Samantha

[LorynJohn]

thank you all for this warm welcome and your words of wisdome. I know I will learn so much from this board. I think I finally found a place where I can ask my questions respectfully, openly and honestly and not feel Ive just stuck my foot in my mouth!

also--as I said to others---I think the basis for my numerous questions---is that---Im so darn excited to MEET this new member of our family----I think I just want SOMEONE to tell me what she's going to look like! Now, LOGICALLY I know thats impossible BUT I really feel like a KID with a GRAND gift coming....I just can hardly STAND not knowing whats inside the package!!! Does that make sense??

Again...thank you all....and stay tuned for MORE questions!! xoxoLory