Cast of Characters

Bee - That's me.  Female, 30s, artist
Peet- My husband, 40s, athlete
Mae- Our 2 year-old biological daughter
Jay - Baby boy in our care

My husband and I discussed adoption on our first date.  He comes from a family with 6 adopted children (he is a bio) and my extended family has a long history of adoption, particularly trans-racial domestic adoption.  It is something we have both been called to our entire lives, and we are lucky that we found partners who shared our dream.

We got a late start in building our family (Ages 34/43) and decided that we would be happy with raising children in any way that they came to us.  We were blessed to have one of own, and afterwards decided that our next child(ren) should probably come from the foster care system, so that we could fill our beds with kids who are already here in this world.  We are able to have biological children, but we are choosing not to have any more.  That is not a judgment on anyone else, I just like to state the facts for what they are.

We were both uncomfortable with private adoption, both domestic and international, for numerous reasons.  The big one, domestically, is that most of our local adoption agencies have a price sheet broken down by race.  On average, a Caucasian infant would be full price, with Latino and Asian babies costing 2/3 of that, and African American babies costing 1/3 that of Caucasian.  Seeing the price lists made me sick to my stomach.

The agencies defend this practice and say it is necessary in order to place non-white babies.  I disagree.  They are charging a premium for white babies because they know they can.  It's disgraceful, how anyone can try to justify a pricing system based on race.  I cannot with good conscience take part in this system or give these people my business or my money.

Again, no judgment on whatever other people choose is right for them. I deeply empathize with anyone who yearns for the experience of a newborn, and I don't fault anyone for pursuing domestic infant adoption to obtain that.

But my situation is my own, and we feel strongly called to adopt children who have trouble finding homes. I had to ask myself, "Who needs me the most?" I had to consider international vs. domestic and foster vs. private.  There is a long line of loving families whom I know will take every one of those healthy newborns who are born and then placed through adoption agencies.  I am happy for all of them.  I do not feel called to a newborn, but to older children instead.  Our hope is to foster older children to adoption.  We have open beds and open hearts and we want to be there for whatever child needs us.

This is just the beginning of our journey, and we are fully braced for things to not go smoothly, and for frustration and heartbreak.  We are trying to be realistic, and yet optimistic.  We know the system is not perfectly functional, and we hope we are strong enough to survive it, or at least, that the children survive it. Wish us luck!