Adoption Preferences

I have filled out what feels like a hundred pages of paperwork about adoption: why I want to adopt, what I have done to get ready to adopt, first name, middle name, maiden name, social security number, annual income, favorite color, favorite food, band instrument I wish I played in 6th grade and name of my least favorite substitute teacher (yellow, fresh peaches, saxophone, Mrs. Westfield - the worst subs were the ones who wanted to be teachers).

But the sheet we keep filling out for every single agency we apply to is the one about "preferences". And there is this whole list, 3 pages sometimes, of horrible questions that you would never have to answer for a child you were giving birth to (okay, I take that back, people do sometimes know if their child has an issue and are given a 'chance' to decide whether or not to 'parent' that child - my sister had that 'opportunity' with my niece's cleft lip and palette; my friend had that 'choice' for her daughter with spina bifida), but many of the questions are not normally encountered for biological children. It feels like you're trying to mail-order God.

There are all different types of questions. Diabetes? HIV? One of the birth parents had leukemia? One of the extended family had leukemia? Bipolar? Mental retardation, mild alcohol consumption, moderate alcohol consumption, severe alcohol consumption? Alcoholic? All manor of drug use questions, all different drugs, how much, in what month. 3 pages.

And every time we fill out the applications, which all word things differently, we re-evaluate, re-assess, re-answer the questions. It is an agonizing and unnatural process.

Idealistically, we just want to say yes. Yes, God. Yes, whatever You want to give us is fine. If we were to give birth to, say, a child with hydrocephaly, we wouldn't decline our parental rights, so why would we say no to adopting a child with the same need? If we gave birth to a baby at 33 weeks gestation, we would do whatever that baby needed us to do, period. So why wouldn't we adopt a baby that has to be in the NICU for 4 weeks?

And yet, we are saying no to some situations. We are saying no to diseases our other children could get. We are saying no to situations we don't think we could parent adequately without severely shortchanging either our adopted child or our other children.

Recently we got a phone call, our first and only, to date, about a baby needing a family. It was a boy, due in 6 weeks or so, pretty significant drug exposure, and they were having trouble finding adoptive families to present to the mom. Were we open, they wanted to know.

We were open. We were open to a baby who might be drug affected. We were open to a baby with legal risk. We were open even though the baby would probably have to be in foster care for a few days before we could get him. Our 'preferences' included all of the things he was, except one.

He was white. And in the racial portion of the preferences questionnaire, we had not stated we are open to white babies. We did not enter the adoption process with any thought of adopting a white baby. It never even entered our minds.

Now, there are several reasons for this.

Demand. White newborns are in higher demand for a few reasons that are not as unkind as you might assume. Most people adopting in America want a white baby because most people adopting in America are white because most people in America (at the current time) are white. (Why are there more black babies? Could it be that young pregnant black women, in spite of being racially targeted by organizations like Planned Parenthood for the destruction of their race, choose to give life while young white women choose abortion more often? I don't know, but I'm so glad the ones who choose life do so, aren't you?!) People generally prefer to adopt a baby that looks like them. Why?

Conspicuousness. A transracial adoption is very noticeable. The family enters a room, a store, a reunion and the very first thing complete strangers know about them is that they are an adoptive family. This can be difficult for the child or the parent or both. The parents have to talk about adoption with their child according to other people's reactions, not on the child's own developmental time table and according to his needs and understanding.

Identification. To adopt a child of a different race is to identify with that race, whether you choose to pursue and embrace that culture, or pretend the difference doesn't exist, it is there. To adopt a child that looks different than you means acknowledging and dealing with all the prejudice and stereotypes that child will face, and to realize the privilege that comes with being white that you were heretofore unaware of. It means helping a child find ways of learning his/her culture [not learning about, actually learning it], so that he/she feels comfortable with people of similar background as him/herself.

Adoption is hard all by itself, and adopting transracially is an entirely different (and potentially much harder) thing. So in the world of adoption preferences, you get to write down if you are open to Caucasian, Asian, Latino, Indian, native American, African-American, and different mixes. Here are my preferences: I want a baby of African-American heritage.

I can come most close to identifying with an African American baby. I live in a neighborhood with black people. I have a niece and nephew from Africa. I have close friends who are black. I do not currently have any relationships with Asian or Latino or Indian people. This is not deliberate, and has not always been the case. But I currently have meaningful relationships with black people. We deliberately chose, long before the subject of adoption was on the table, to live in a neighborhood where we would interact with and connect with and identify with African-American people all the time.

Does having a black niece and nephew and living in a neighborhood with black people and having friends who are black qualify me to raise a black child? No. But it does mean I'm better equipped than I am to raise, say, a Korean child.

I don't mind being conspicuous. We're incredibly conspicuous. I think leaving the house with a child who is obviously adopted will make us look LESS conspicuous. People will look and go, "oh, they're an adoptive family" and then they'll try to figure out which other kids are adopted instead of trying to imagine how one woman could possibly give birth to 10 children in 13 years.

And as far as demand/availability, we're a long shot. Maybe no birth mother will pick us at all. We just want to say 'yes' to young women who are choosing life instead of abortion - and it happens that many of those are African American.

We said yes to that drug affected white baby, but didn't get him. And for the 3 or 4 days we were waiting to be presented, I thought about adoption and about transracial adoption. I thought it might be easier, less complicated, and that maybe God didn't think I had what it took to be the mom of a child with brown skin. And I walked around my world with my eyes wide open, wondering if my community would accept us with an adopted black baby.

At my grocery store (as often happens, I was the only white person there), there was a young woman with a teeny tiny baby with brown skin and dark eyes and black curly hair, and I was smitten and adoring and I wondered if she'd be as happy for me if I walked in holding a baby like that - or if she'd resent it. It is possible that some people in my community, especially those who don't really know us, will feel we've stolen from them, or that it is yet another form of white arrogance.

I'm aware of the many opportunities I have for screwing up - it would reflect poorly if I allow my adopted black child to run outside in just a diaper or underwear - in my neighborhood people don't do that. It might be easier in suburbia than in the city. I'm nervous, afraid. Can I raise a child to be culturally comfortable with other black people, but raise him/her first in the Kingdom of God, and therefore in the world but not of it, and therefore somewhat uncomfortable with anyone who doesn't know Jesus?

Part of me thinks this won't really happen. We went up on the mountain, we tied up "Issac" and got ready to light the fire, and that's all that will really come of it. It was just a test. We passed. $4,000 in the offering plate. I'm not afraid to offer that to God, I trust Him. And I'm not afraid of looking like a fool for Him - I do that all the time.

I'm probably more afraid that it will happen. I don't know what it will look like, or be like. I do not enjoy experiencing rejection, nor do I appreciate when my children encounter it. I am uncertain that I have what it takes. But I am completely certain God does have what it takes. I have seen that His timing is always perfect. His ways are always perfect. I know that whatever He does with us in this area in this season will be exactly right and He will give us whatever we need to be the parents of all the children He gives us - emotionally, financially, in every way.

And I guess that's where my preferences really come down. I don't want a child of African American descent for reasons of availability or conspicuousness or racial identification. I don't want to be the mom of a black boy or girl because I live in a neighborhood with wonderful black people and have wonderful black friends and have a marvelous black nephew and a gorgeous black niece. It isn't my preference because I think I could do better at raising a black child than I could if I was mom to a child of another culture or ethnicity.

I want a son or daughter with lovely brown skin and beautiful dark eyes and curly black hair because that is what God put in my heart when He planted the seeds for adoption. That's what I want because that's what I think God wants to give me. I will follow Him anywhere and do whatever He tells me to do, and if it doesn't look like I thought it would, I will still say 'yes' to Him. It wouldn't be the first time He took me to St. Louis by way of St. Petersberg or to Muncie, Indiana by way of Tulsa, Oklahoma.