Race Controversies

I love controversies, but this one makes me uncomfortable. Opinions about race and adoption have made us waiver in our hopes to adopt more than anything.

Growing up white in a 99% white community, I haven't had much experience with modern racism. I haven't noticed racism in any of my work locations. And I'm not really around many people other than children who aren't white in Utah, probably the whitest state in the nation. I've had friends that didn't share my European decent, but I didn't consciously notice that the color of their skin, the texture of their hair, or the shape of their eyes was different from most everyone else's.

According to many of the well-educated adoption "experts" and adoptive parents that share their opinions online, my skin color, experience, and environment leave me most under-qualified to parent someone with brown skin. These aren't folks that rant in random forums either:

1. The National Association of Black Social Workers. While they've softened their rhetoric and added some good solutions to racial problems, they've held since 1972 that placing black children in white homes is "racial genocide".

2. Pact, An Adoption Alliance. This is a referral, counseling, and education service for adoptive families, adopted children, and birth parents, especially for children of color. It is very supportive of transracial adoption, as long as it takes place in a diverse community. I've found their articles very informative, even if a little discouraging.

3. Adopted: the Movie. This is a documentary with interviews of parents, adult adoptees, and those who have studied how adoption affects families. I found the clips on YouTube very informative, but Brett found them a little discouraging--the importance of a diverse community comes through here too.

It's easy to come away from this believing those who claim that because I'm white, and I can't fully understand what it's like to be black in America, I would cause deep and avoidable pain in the life of a son or daughter of color. How very intimidating!

But I'm thankful for their opinions, their research, and the ease of sharing their experiences on the internet. I have learned and thought much about transracial adoption issues, and should we adopt a black child, I will continue to do so.

After reflection, I agree with some of what all of these pessimistic folks are saying, and even recommend reading Pact articles and definitely watching Adopted. But not without rejecting the notion that transracial adoption in our situation would not be good for everyone involved. I'll soon share some ways that other transracial families are thriving, right here in Utah. They may be a picture of what our family will look like!

Adoption and Pregnancy

It's odd to think that if we were to adopt this summer or fall, our child would be alive in someone's belly right now. It's certainly not too early to be praying for our next child!

Everyone has friends that struggled to get pregnant...until they started the adoption process. While that's not us, it doesn't hurt to check. (Unless you're a guy that's uncomfortable with "girl talk"; then you might not want to read any further.)

We committed to adoption by calling a social worker for a home study about a week and a half ago. That's also when we started avoiding pregnancy. Technically, I could have already been pregnant. In fact, there was a 6% chance. To know for sure, I'd have to 1) have been paying attention to my signals for a month or so (didn't start until we committed to adoption), 2) take a pregnancy test, or 3) get my blood drawn. Pregnancy tests aren't good until 2 weeks later, but getting my blood drawn all the way up on base is a hassle and I was kinda curious.

So I went to Wal-Mart yesterday and got my first pregnancy test kit (you don't have to spend the money when you're paying attention like in option 1 above). I didn't get the little plus sign though.

Ben found it in the trash today and was running around the house with it. This time, when I picked it up there was a faint plus. Ha! I guess that means I'll definitely have to go back and get another kit in a few days when it actually is supposed to work.

In the meantime, I'll be praying for God to give us a child and for that child, no matter who's belly he might be in.

Ethical Questions

We had to find answers to the following questions before feeling comfortable with adoption.

1. Are birth moms coerced into giving up their children for adoption? Adoption agencies have a lot to gain from the adoption process! Some birth moms complain when they don't receive the right counseling, but talking with the Utah licensing office helped us eliminate agencies that may have been taking advantage of birth moms.

2. Since Utah agencies fly birth moms to Utah, often for the last several months of pregnancy, does that provide the wrong motivations to birth moms for adoption? Free rent, food, and medical! Birth moms already have access to food stamps, WIC, Medicaid, etc. without the agency. It sounds like some birth moms may still play the entitlement game, but for the most part, birth moms come here to escape abusive relationships, get off of the streets, or find privacy. The agencies also offer welcome accountability in making wise choices for the growing baby.

3. What about the birth fathers? Do they have a say? Adoptive families have been in the news with horror stories of birth fathers trying to take their children. But that could legitimately be a horror story for the birth father too, especially if the pregnancy/birth/adoption was hidden from him. To sort it all out, Utah law gives responsibility for claiming a child squarely on the father: he knows he did the baby-making deed, so he knows there could be a baby. And his relationship to his offspring is protected by law as long as he registers in his state's putative father registry, which he can do with or without pregnancy confirmation.

Finding these answers was relatively stress free for us. Sorting through the transracial adoption controversy was (is!) another story...

We want to adopt. What next?

Deciding you want to adopt is EASY compared to deciding how you want to adopt. There are these big decision matrices available online to help you wade through the decisions: international, domestic, or foster? Things like how much money you can spend, how long you're willing to wait, how much you want to travel and for how long, your age, your marriage history, your adopted child's age, his background, etc. all go into the decision.

I spent a lot of time online trying to figure out which of the dozens of available countries to adopt from. A LOT. But none of them felt right. What kind of engineer makes a decision based on how it feels?!? This is new territory for me. Especially when decision matrices are available. I love decision matrices. But because international adoption didn't "feel right", we decided to pursue domestic adoption.

Don't worry, I still used spreadsheets to help us make the rest of the decision.

This is where the stress of decision making really got to me. Sure we eliminated a bunch of countries, but now we had to choose just one of hundreds of adoption agencies to send our thousands of dollars to. And it's pretty clear on the internet that there are bad agencies out there that will take your money and run. Each state treats adoption a little differently too. It felt like we were trying to find the needle in the haystack!

Thankfully, I think we did find that needle. We looked at the web sites for the agencies in Utah, searched the adoption forums for feedback on our favorites, called the Utah licensing office for complaint history and resolution, and talked with adoptive parents. So many people took time out of their lives to help us! I am still amazed at their generosity. We learned which agencies raised the ethical eyebrow, which had documentation problems, which treated birth mothers well, and which had good customer service. And, oh yeah...we learned which were the most expensive! (Let me know if you want any of this information.) In the end, we decided to go with A Guardian Angel Adoptions. What a relief to choose an agency!

We've hired a social worker for a home study, and we're off! Now we just need to avoid pregnancy unless we want "twins"...

Adoption: Our first steps

I can't help but wonder if there will be another face in this picture next Christmas... At least, that's what we're hoping! We're asking God to add another child to our family, but this time through adoption. And if you care to follow along, I'll keep you updated on our progress here.

First, why adopt? In college, I talked with my closest friends about how I wanted to adopt a child with Down's Syndrome, so I guess adoption has always been on my mind. If God is concerned for orphans (James 1:27), I should be too. Besides, He even adopted me (Ephesians 1:5)!

While our family isn't ready for special needs adoption, we are obviously open to other adoption. Did you know that more than 40% of America's African American children are aborted? Check it out here & scroll down. How tragic! One way to help is to provide another option--adoption.

And that's what we hope to do. I'll write about what we've done so far in my next post.