Would a birth mom choose us?

[DoulaVallere]

I'm currently pregnant with our third child, but DH and I are planning to begin the adoption process in the year following her birth. We are (mostly) set on a domestic infant adoption, and are very open to any race. There is what seems to be a really wonderful program in our state that specializes in AA and biracial child adoption, and we are really looking into that program.

So, and I'm sure this is normal, but I'm already having these questions pop up...would anyone choose us?

1) Would an AA/hispanic/biracial mom even considder us - 2 white folks with 3 white kids?

2) Would a birthmom even considder a family who already has 3 bio kids?

3) Would the fact that we homeschool write us off or is that even something we would disclose?

I just have such a heart for adoption - it's something I've really wanted to do for a long time and it's finally looking like our life/finances will be in a good place to persue it finally, so I guess what I want to hear is "Oh hun, stop worrying! Birthmoms choose families like yours all the time!" but I'm worried I'll hear "Just give up now, you don't have a chance...AA moms want AA families to raise their kids." So I guess I'd rather know now what we would be up against before investing my heart totally into something that would never happen.

Any advice? Insight?

TY

[Tigerchild]

Originally Posted by DoulaVallere

I just have such a heart for adoption - it's something I've really wanted to do for a long time and it's finally looking like our life/finances will be in a good place to persue it finally, so I guess what I want to hear is "Oh hun, stop worrying! Birthmoms choose families like yours all the time!" but I'm worried I'll hear "Just give up now, you don't have a chance...AA moms want AA families to raise their kids." So I guess I'd rather know now what we would be up against before investing my heart totally into something that would never happen.

Some emoms might choose you, some will not. How much of a heart do you honestly have for adoption? Are you willing to tolerate the unknown? Are you willing to have your reasons/beliefs challenged (because they likely will be--from family, friends, possibly workers, people in the street) I don't think it's pragmatic to tell you "stop worrying" because...well, to be honest, I have yet to meet an amom face to face who did not disclose that they worried about whether their time would ever come at some point in the process. Worrying is normal. There is no guarantee that you will ever hold an adopted child in your arms. A strong possibility, but no guarantee. It might not happen. If you choose to push through your fear and genuinely go for it, it probably will--but likely on a different timeline than you would like or expect (sometimes quicker sometimes slower).

Unfortunately, if you really want to pursue adoption you will need to be willing to invest a part of you with no guarantee of return. It is a real sacrifice. Everyone in the triad makes their sacrifices to the unknown, there's no side that escapes it.

There are people who choose families like yours. There are some that won't. And some that wouldn't for other reasons that are not amongst what you are worried about. Keep researching, keep learning. If you're not willing to put yourself out there yet, then that is okay too. Maybe those feelings will change over time.

[Sierra]

Tigerchild, you never cease to amaze me. That was a great post, and expressed thoughts that hadn't even yet fully formed in my own mind. I'll second that!

[marsupial-mom]

I'm worried I'll hear "Just give up now, you don't have a chance...AA moms want AA families to raise their kids."

Are you willing to have an open adoption? is your neighborhood diverse? Do you have black friends? Do you know African American history?
These are the kinds of things that will influence a birthmom's decision.

[lamamax3]

Not to be a downer, but you guys sounds JUST like us. We have three kids and homeschool and are not AA. The homeschooling doesn't seem to have slowed us down; in fact, our sw thinks it can be a plus. Our neighborhood is diverse. Two emoms didn't want to place with a family with kids, two more wouldn't consider non-AA families, and then the emom population dried up in our program. We have been trying to do this for two years now The other posters are right, this isn't for the faint of heart.

[mamadebug]

It is important to remember that what is important to one birthmom won't necessarily be important to another birthmom. I think marsupial-mom brought up some great things to think about.

We attended a class though our adoption agency where an African American birthmom spoke. She placed her child (whose father was also African American) with a caucasian family. Their ability to parent her son and integrate his ethnic background was a HUGE factor in her decision to choose them. I don't think she cared if they had other kids.

A while back, a birthmom going through profiles had narrowed it down to me and my husband and one other couple, and ended up choosing the other couple because they didn't have any other kids (we have 1 bio kid). My husband and I are an interracial couple, although not the same ethnicity/race as her, and that didn't seem to matter to her AT ALL.

About homeschooling, it would most likely come out in your homestudy. But, it may or may not come up when you meet with expectant parents. Not that you would try to hide it, but not all the details of your parenting will come out. If it is a defining aspect of your parenting, you would probably share that.....

[Polliwog]

I think that some people (expectant or not) feel strongly about homeschooling. For some people, homeschooling would be a dealbreaker. For others, it would be a plus. I would definitely include it in your homestudy and interactions with expectant parents.

[DoulaVallere]

Thank you all for the feedback! We definately live in a diverse area...we are in a university town and my DH is a child psychiatrist at the local hospital which also has a medical school, so there is a WIDE range of races and ethnicities in our area, plus DH works with tons of people from all over the world. I'm also a member of a moms group that is pretty diverse...AA, Hispanic, Asian, etc. Our homeschooling group has a couple of AA families, one who adopted both of her kids, and then there is another family (Caucasian) who just brought home their son from Etheopia. Hopefully, all of those things would be a plus.

I appreciate everyone's input.

[lyra1977]

I agree with what everyone else said already, but thought I'd offer that it might actually be a quick process. I know someone who has an AA son through adoption and is planning to adopt again through the same agency in Atlanta. She told me that there are a dozen AA expectant moms in that agency right now that are not matched with adoptive families because they are expecting AA boys and there aren't enough families who are open to adopting AA boys. I'm hearing this secondhand, but if you are interested I can put you in touch with her for more information. She is in Virginia and so I assume you could also use that program in Atlanta when you are ready to do so.

[koalove]

as a birthmother...i would not think twice about your family based on that information. im not AA so its hard for me to say on that, but, ive placed 2 kids and the first one i placed in a family that had kids. i liked that he wouldnt be an only child, and that the parents had experience. i would have been thrilled to find a family that home schooled. you just never know how a birthparent will make a choice. for me, i liked that ds would grow up with music, art, literature and big family around. when i placed dd with a gay coupled who had no family support due to a very closed mined family, i was just so happy that she was going to have lots of non family community, music, and a truly alive and vibrant set of parents. plus, i knew she would always have my other kids as siblings. dont loose heart, you sound like a wonderful, thoughtful parent and someone will see that.

[DoulaVallere]

Originally Posted by koalove

as a birthmother...i would not think twice about your family based on that information. im not AA so its hard for me to say on that, but, ive placed 2 kids and the first one i placed in a family that had kids. i liked that he wouldnt be an only child, and that the parents had experience. i would have been thrilled to find a family that home schooled. you just never know how a birthparent will make a choice. for me, i liked that ds would grow up with music, art, literature and big family around. when i placed dd with a gay coupled who had no family support due to a very closed mined family, i was just so happy that she was going to have lots of non family community, music, and a truly alive and vibrant set of parents. plus, i knew she would always have my other kids as siblings. dont loose heart, you sound like a wonderful, thoughtful parent and someone will see that.

Thank you so much for the kind words!

And thank you to everyone else for the insight! I really do appreciate it!

[CrazyCatLady]

Sorry to bump an older thread. But I'm also a birthmom who's placed twice before. I'm not AA, so I don't know much about that either. When looking for a family, I will only consider people who have kids already. I don't want my kid to be the "practice kid" (I don't have a better way of putting it). I want to know that parents have done this before and that their relationship survived it. Knowing that my kid will have siblings is a huge plus to me. The first family I placed with had one kid at the time, and the second had four kids already. I considered a couple families with six kids or more. I homeschool and both families that I placed with also homeschool. So that would be nothing but a plus to me as well. For me the more out there and crunchy a family was, the better.

Honestly, I've done the search for AP families four times now when trying to place my kids. It is hard. There are either not that many AP/crunchy people adopting, or the ones that are tend to advertise themselves as a bit more normal/mainstream so they appeal to a bigger pool of birth moms. I've never adopted, so maybe it works out best that way for most adoptive families. But it makes it very difficult for birth moms to weed through families trying to find the most AP ones. So as a very crunchy birthmom, I'd say a family like yours would be very appealing to me. And I figure I can't be the only one out there. Good luck to you.

[Smithie]

Vallere, have you at all into the prospect of an infant adoption through the public system? I realize that it varies a lot by state, but in my state at least, it's a popular option for people who are willing to take a AA placement. Since we started the process of older-child adoption, I have encountered several people who have adopted healthy infants through our state's foster-to-adopt program after a wait that they felt was comparable to what an agency would have put them through - and without spending thousands of dollars they could ill afford. Plus, with the Multi Ethnic Placement Act, race is not a factor in the placement of children by public agencies.

[Julia Rose]

We are (hopefully) nearing the end of our home study process. SW asked me to rewrite the dear emom letter twice, and one of the things she had me edit out was a paragraph in which I talked about our openness and eagerness to learn about our achild's birth heritage. She said she felt it was much more important to speak about how you would talk about the eparents to achild; that not all eparents care that much about culture and heritage. I think that caucasian aparents (Dh and me included) tend to think that someone from another cultural background would see this as a foreground issue. But according to SW, that's an assumption that's not always true.

All the same, I'm wondering *how* you bring this up in a home study. My caucasian grandmother was a committed civil rights activist and had two AA husbands. My mother spent most of her life advocating for equal access to educational opportunities for disadvantaged children. But does it matter? If I bring up these things in the home stud, I'd feel like I was pandering.

[Julia Rose]

I don't mean to hijack the original thread, but I'm wondering (@Melaya) how AP practices might be presented in a home study. I've talked extensively with SW about my adherence to AP, and it turned out she was AP too. We are adopting through Catholic Charities in our area; they do local placements, and I'm guessing that most of the emoms in my area don't place a high premium on AP aparents, though I could be wrong. Am I wrong to assume that a website-dear emom letter would go into more detail about that sort of thing? Catholic Charities doesn't do websites; it's pretty bare bones.

And I bet that in many cases AP aparents would not want to broadcast that, b/c not all eparents would be on board.

[CrazyCatLady]

Just hint at it somehow. I don't know...maybe a picture of you wearing your baby. Or a mention of using some holistic medicine. Even just mentioning alternative school choices or homeschool or something would give me a hint. Just some clue that would let me know to ask more questions.

It got very old and embarrassing to see a profile of people who looked like they might be crunchy, contact them, only to find out that of course they fully vax and of course they make their babies cio and of course they spank. What good parent doesn't?

While going through something as sensitive as trying to find parents for your child, the feeling of rejection that you get when people pass your baby up cause your a "hippy weirdo" is heartbreaking. So I just wish that some people were a little more open about their AP ways. But I don't see it happening anytime soon. And for now just going through friends of friends has worked for me, verses using agencies (cause man they'll just try and cram any ol set of homestudied parents down your throat, whether they're what you're looking for or not).

Sorry to hijack OP.

[Julia Rose]

Oh, I'm sorry to hijack too . . . : -/

Melaya, thanks, those are all good points. Like I said, Catholic Charities where I live is bare bones. They place babies locally, and one of the reasons SW asked me to change things around in the dear emom letter was that she said it was too long and detailed, and "many of our eparents have limited literacy skills." Which is not to say that an emom with limited literacy would *not* care about AP or not. Anyway, SW knows we are AP and dear emom letter says we are strongly considering homeschooling (=committed to homeschooling; our DS isn't school-age yet, but we *are* planning to homeschool -- I wanted to hedge that bet because some eparents would not approve!). So hopefully she will find a graceful way to express these things, and of course eparents can ask us.

On another note . . . the thought that aparents would *not* AP their achild makes my heart go to my throat. Sigh.

[DoulaVallere]

Feel free to hijack! The more I read, the more I learn!

Originally Posted by Smithie

Vallere, have you at all into the prospect of an infant adoption through the public system? I realize that it varies a lot by state, but in my state at least, it's a popular option for people who are willing to take a AA placement. Since we started the process of older-child adoption, I have encountered several people who have adopted healthy infants through our state's foster-to-adopt program after a wait that they felt was comparable to what an agency would have put them through - and without spending thousands of dollars they could ill afford. Plus, with the Multi Ethnic Placement Act, race is not a factor in the placement of children by public agencies.

I'm going to look into this, but it is my understanding that even if you have a newborn placed with you, it can take months to finish an adoption through the state, and during that time I wouldn't be allowed to breastfeed the baby. This is something that is REALLY important to me - I'm a La Leche League Leader as well as just knowing that it's healthier, better for bonding, etc. So I would need to do some more research to find out if that truely is the case or not before we would go that route.

[Polliwog]

You would not be allowed to breastfeed a foster chld in North Carolina.

[DoulaVallere]

Originally Posted by Polliwog

You would not be allowed to breastfeed a foster chld in North Carolina.

That's what I thought.