
In the past on this blog, I have had some good posts come as a result of
"Questions and Answers". What sort of things are you interested in as a transracial adoptive parent, or as a prospective transracial adoptive parent?
What issues are you concerned about handling? What worries you? What excites you? What advice do you want or need the very most? What would you like to read about? I thought that I would throw this out there, and if you will leave me a question or two in a comment, then I will happily answer them in posts to come. Let's try to keep it on topic (so no, "what brand laundry soap" type of questions are needed) but anything on the topic of transracial adoption is fair game. Give me your best shot!
I will start by answering the most basic of questions on transracial adoption.
SPONSOR
Why would you adopt transracially?
For us, it became the clear choice. We wanted a daughter. We had three sons, and we really wanted a little girl. I could not give birth to any more children, and I knew that with three, we were not "done".
We looked into
domestic infant adoption, and found that if we wanted a white baby, the fees were astronomical, the waits were indefinite (some agencies talked in terms of "if" not "when" a placement happened) and as a first time adoptive parents, the
risks of domestic adoption were scary to me.
We had friends adopting from Russia and looked into that briefly (while looking into other options) and we were scared off by stories of fraud, long travel and very high fees (please note that there are some very good agencies and programs working in
Russia).
But to be honest, transracial adoption appealed to me from the very beginning. I never saw white babies and children as "better" or "more desirable". Before we decided for sure on adopting transracially we put a lot of thought and consideration into the
ethical issues,
racial issues and what it would be like to really be a
transracial family, and while we knew it would not be simple, we felt that it was the best adoption path for us, and we felt that we could offer the best possible family to an orphaned child.
We looked into several
different programs and found the best one for us at that time. We brought our first daughter home, and things sort of snowballed from there. Now five years and seven kids later, I can't imagine our family as anything other than it is; a beautiful, wonderful mix of races and cultures, bonded together by love and belonging.
So, please go ahead and leave me your transracial adoption questions. I look forward to reading them and to answering them.