After writing about some of the truths about race and adoption that I have discovered since adopting transracially and, and sharing some of my personal thoughts and beliefs on race and adoption, I wanted to follow it up with some of my "strategies".

I think that in a nutshell, transracial adoptive parents have to walk the line between realism and optimism. Now let me explain.

I think that we have to be realistic. We have to be aware of the ugliness of racism and it's prevalence... more

In my last two posts I shared some of the truths about race and adoption that I have discovered as a transracial adoptive parent.

Today I want to share some more things that I feel to be true in regards to transracial adoption, however many of these are now my own personal thoughts, beliefs, feelings and ways of looking at things.

- Most transracial adoptive parents are aware of racial issues and are no longer turning a blind eye to them. While I could never say "all" transracial adoptive parents are educated and prepared, I do believe that transracial adoptive parents have... more

In my last post I started sharing some of the "truths" I have come to learn regarding race and transracial adoption. Here is the rest of my list. Please feel free to add to it by leaving a comment.

- Our kids are going to grow up. This may seem like a "duh" thing to say, but it's true. It is easy to parent a little black baby. He's cute, and people in the world see him with you and for the most part, people smile (and say dumb things), and think that he is cute. As parents, we are able to protect young children from much of the ugliness that is out there in the world.

However that... more

Issues involving race are never cut and dry, and are often emotional, complex and at times, overwhelming.

For transracial adoptive parents, or parents considering transracial adoption, there is much to think about and much to learn. Here are a few simple (or not so simple) truths regarding race and transracial adoption that I have come to learn, and that all transracial adoptive parents or those considering transracial adoption, should consider.

- Racism is real. It is alive and well in the United States today, and in many other countries, too. It happens every day in big obvious ways, but also in small subtle ways, like the cop who pulls over the black man in the fancy car... more

Mary over at the Ethiopia adoption blog started this meme, and I thought it would be fun to join in.

Four things I thought about adoption when I was a child:

- I first heard about the idea of adoption on Little House on the Prairie (which was my absolute favorite show!) Albert, Alicia, John and the kid who was played by Jason Bateman but I can't remember his name on the show, were all adopted.

- I thought that only "cool" and famous people were adopted in real life, and that only rich people were able to adopt children.

- I wanted to adopt a baby girl from China.

- Thinking of... more

While much of what determines how fast (or not) your homestudy will be completed lies in the hand of your social worker, the tips that I offered definitely do help speed the process along. I am thrilled to say that our homestudy is DONE. It has been written, typed, proof-read, corrected and sent from our homestudy agency to our placement agency, and our awesome placement agency, AAI,... more

I have been writing about how we experienced many unexpected emotions on our trip to adopt our son, Ben, from Ethiopia.

Another emotion that we were not prepared for before our trip to Ethiopia was that of love for the culture and people of Ethiopia, and personal dedication to giving back and trying to make even a small difference in a place we came to love in a very short time. It sounds very cliche to say that our trip was life-changing, and yet it was. Both Josh and I returned home from Ethiopia with the knowledge that we would return, and that we would have a life-long involvement... more

To wrap up writing about Ben and his adoption process, and what it was like for us as adoptive parents, I have to write some about our trip.

Getting a new, almost six-year old son is an emotional, overwhelming, amazing, life-changing event. However, traveling to Africa for the first time and experiencing all that is Ethiopia for the first time is also an emotional, overwhelming, amazing, life-changing event. When you put the two together, you are setting yourself up for one heck of a ride.

The... more

I have beens sharing my emotions and experiences with meeting our adopted children for the first time and what our early days and weeks with them were like for me. In my last post I wrote about our domestic infant adoption, and in this post I am going to share what it was like adopting two older children domestically.

Our adoption of Mercy and Des was not exactly planned. Marcus was only two months old when we got a phone call from a domestic agency that we had sent our profile to when we were waiting for an infant placement. We were asked if we would consider adopting two older children (with... more

After writing about the emotions that adoptive parents often feel when they are going through the adoption process, I wrote about the emotions that are common for adoptive parents to experience when their children are first placed with them, and then I started sharing some of our personal experiences with meeting our children for the first time and what our early days with them were like.

Our first two experiences were with international... more