About Adoption

Yes, you can adopt a child from Africa—Part 3

Lisa J. — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:18:27 +0000

Just a bit of reflection here: back in the 1970s, I took an evening babysitting job with a family in my neighborhood. I’d never met them before; they’d gotten my name from someone else. I lived in an all-white neighborhood. The parents were white; they had two white children of babysitting age, who presumably also had plans for the evening. The kid I was babysitting was a little black boy of about five.

Now, I was old enough to know that white parents had white children, so I was a bit curious about how he came to be part of this family. In those days, adoption was a little more “in the closet” than it is today, although having a child of a different race is a dead giveaway. (The white older kids may have been adopted as well.) The parents didn’t introduce him in any special way, so I figured he was adopted and that was that.

He was a cute little kid and I enjoyed the job. Times were more innocent then (or maybe it was just me), but perhaps the idea of parents of one color with kids of other colors is becoming more common and more accepted. And perhaps we have the celebrities, in part, to thank for that—if nothing else, because of their high visibility.

Knowledge is Power

alyson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:37:28 +0000

I really want to thank everyone for their comments following my last post. We certainly have a diverse group of readers! Diversity is such a big part of adoption and it can evoke a range of emotions. As with many things, adoption has some terms that are totally unique unto itself and as varied as the emotions they evoke.

Let’s see if you can figure these terms out as they apply to adoption -

So how did you do? Well, probably better than I would have before we adopted. Hopefully most well written books regarding adoption will contain a glossary to assist you. You can also always look at the glossaries on Adopting.org or Adoption.com.

Once you have that information under control, and you have read through Sandra’s posts on here from January and February, you will have a lot to chew on. If you still think you could be interested and you want to know more, then watch for my next post where we discuss what you actually want and are willing and able to accept in a child and their situation. Until then, remember that knowledge is power!

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This group is designed as a forum to encourage and provide information to those interested in pursuing adoption. It is not a place for being argumentative, vindictive, or mean. There are places for that but this is not it. Comments that are belittling or hurtful to anyone, author or reader alike will be removed.

Yes, you can adopt a child from Africa—Part 2

Lisa J. — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:17:25 +0000

I was unable to find statistics on how many of these African children are adopted by white Americans vs. African Americans (or any other race); however, I did find some food for thought in various discussion groups on the subject.

First, international adoption can be less costly than domestic adoption, which some people are not aware of. (I admit, I was surprised to learn this.) Second, the international adoption option may not be well known in the African American community. Finally, some people may believe that there are so many adoptable black children in the US that they should begin their search here.

For these reasons, and perhaps others, it’s quite possible that if more African Americans were made aware of the tremendous need–and the tremendous opportunity—to adopt from African countries, some of the mind-boggling and heart-wrenching need (more than 20 million orphans in Africa) would be addressed.

Yes, you can adopt a child from Africa—Part 1

Lisa J. — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:48:27 +0000

In an earlier series of posts, I discussed the reluctance of many African countries to allow adoption, by American families or otherwise.

Happily, there are exceptions to the generalization. While most of Africa’s 54 countries do not allow adoption (for a variety of cultural, religious, and political reasons), some do. Ethiopia is one such exception.

According to an article by Abraham McLaughlin in the Christian Science Monitor (December 4, 2003), the four most common types of adopters of Ethiopian children are white couples, white single mothers, African-American couples, and African expatriates. Adoption workers say the race of the adopting parents is not an issue.

Call me idealistic, but each of these potential parental scenarios seems like a different exciting possibility. White couples: with adoptable white US-born babies being in short supply, this opens up a whole new world. White single moms: with preference being given to couples, adopting from Africa represents almost unlimited opportunity.

White people of any marital status: when people ask or comment about the black children (as people often do), the door is wide open to educate people on the subject.

Black couples: if they find whites are given preference in adopting from the limited supply of white babies, again, here’s a nearly unlimited source. Finally, African expatriates: these are the people best equipped—and most likely—to teach their adopted kids about their heritage.

My Road Less Traveled

alyson — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:08:58 +0000

“I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
— Robert Frost

Adoption is most certainly the road less traveled by and for my family, it has indeed made all of the difference. My name is Alyson LaBarge and I’d like to introduce myself as a new writer here on AboutAdoption. Lisa and Sandra have taken such good care of you and covered so many aspects regarding adoption that I have had to take some time and put serious thought into what my first post should be about. In an effort to give you a chance to get to know me and some of the adventures, struggles and challenges my family has experienced, I’ve decided to tell you a little more about myself and my family.

My husband and I met and married in 1993, before he had finished school. We had mentioned adoption and I said, “No way, no how!” I have a brother who is adopted and several cousins and only knew of kid who came with lots of complicated baggage. Besides, we had plans for having a family but we wanted to wait a couple of years and then get pregnant. Writing that now just makes me laugh. You see, after 3 years of marriage, we thought the time was right and we were ready…to go through the ups and downs of infertility for 8 more years. :) Don’t we all have great hindsight? Time passed and as we pursued infertility treatments,began to meet several couples who had and were in the process of legally adopting healthy American newborns and were not paying exorbitant sums of money. We could not believe it. We watched them with great fascination.

Fast forward to the year 2000. Y2K. What a year it was to be, right? Well, for us it was. That is the year we decided to take the leap and follow our hearts into parenthood via adoption, especially since the old fashioned way wasn’t looking any too bright. We signed up with our domestic agency through our church, filled out all the forms, childproofed our home, had criminal background checks done, and waited. (drumming fingers…..) In July of 2001, almost a year and a half since we signed up, we received the call from our social worker telling us we had been selected by a birthmom and would become parents in September. We could not believe it. We were breathless with anticipation. We did not know if the baby was a girl or boy and we did not care. All we cared was that the birthmom did not change her mind and that she and the baby were safe and healthy.

Our birthmom was due to be induced on September 11th. For many reasons, she was not but at about 4pm on September 12th, we got a phone call we will never forget - we had a daughter with lots of dark hair - and both birthmom and baby were well! What a day! So we packed up and drove down to the city she was in, just so we could DO something. When the appointed day and time came, we went to the hospital, signed again more paperwork, did more waiting, and got to meet our birthmom and her parents face to face. They were lovely. We were so thrilled to have the chance to meet them. Then the moment we had been waiting for - the birthmom placed our new daughter in our arms for the first time. A priceless memory to be sure.

Our state requires the child be in the home for 6 months before the adoption can be finalized so in March of 2002 we went to court and her adoption was complete and final.

6 weeks later we found out I was pregnant.:) Yes, I know. You hear all of the stories and here I am, telling you another. We figured that our first daughter, whom I’ll call P1, had to be a member of our family and as soon as she was, then our second daughter, whom I’ll call P2, could be born. The pregnancy went smoothly and I loved each and every minute of it. Okay, maybe not the morning sickness but the rest was wonderful. When she was born, she surprisingly managed to even be born on her Daddy’s birthday. What a treat.

Of course, nothing being simple, I knew we were supposed to have one more girl in our family. Back to the infertility doctor we went. After several rounds of treatments with no results, I could no longer handle the side effects of the medicines. Shortly after that, other conditions in my body made a hysterectomy advisable, making all my dreams of daughter #3 seem impossible. We would not be good candidates for a healthy newborn adoption again and we still did not feel equipped to take on the needs of a child with emotional baggage.

While recuperating from my hysterectomy, I saw the episode on Oprah regarding little girls and the horrible circumstances that often occur in Asia regarding the need and desire for a male offspring. I was practically distraught at the thought of all of those ‘unloved and unwanted’ little girls when I had a heart dying for another daughter. Alas, I knew there was no possible way that we could afford the $20-30K required to adopt one, even if I could convince my husband it was a good idea so I buried the information in my heart.

Time passed and life went on. Fast forward to early 2005. I was once again reminded of international adoption when some dear friends adopted from Ethiopia. This got me thinking about us adopting again and I started looking at it online. Before you know it, I had gathered a fair amount of information, something my husband started to notice. He could see how strongly I felt about it and agreed to ‘discuss’ it. As we were discussing it, I further narrowed my opinions of where we should adopt from and by the first weekend in May, we agreed that we had a daughter waiting for us in China and if there is a will, there is a way.

The real fun began at that point. We chose our agency, filled out the agency-required papers, met with our social worker, filled out the US-required papers, filled out the China-required papers, wrote several checks, had several fund raisers, learned all we could about China and waited. And waited. And waited. When we began the process, the babies were coming home in 6-8 months. Due to many things, some beyond anyone’s control, the entire process took 25 months, from the time we signed the first papers to the time we brought her home. The wait was tough, brutal at times but I made some wonderful friends and learned so much in the process, including the starting of my blog. When we saw our daughter, whom I’ll call P3, for the first time, I did not care what it had taken to get to that point and would have gone through almost anything just to bring her home. In her case, I loved her before I even met her.

So here we are now, a happy family of 3. No, there will be no more as I now feel our family is complete but it would not be so without the miracle of adoption. Now I am not about to tell you it was all easy or that it is all problem-free. My husband is still working on bonding with P3 over a year later and we still have some sleep issues we are addressing with her. But at this point, it is all part of the commitment we have made, part of being parents, part of being a family. I really would not have it any other way.

Every day it seems I run into someone who knows someone who is adopting, has questions about adoption or is interested in adopting themselves. I love nothing better than to share some of my knowledge and experience in hopes of helping others find the path less taken. If you have questions, please feel free to ask me. I am fairly open and well connected with the adoption community. If I do not know the answer, I’ll do my best to find it for you. Thank you for letting me share my experiences for adoption and all things related truly are a work of the heart.

20 million orphans in Africa…can anyone do anything? Part 3

Lisa J. — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:43:58 +0000

Some visible Americans have made news recently by adopting kids from Africa. This scenario, however, is very much the exception to the rule. Most of Africa’s 54 countries do not allow adoption, for a variety of cultural, religious, and political reasons. Even some Americans feel it is naïve and arrogant of us to think that other countries should let us adopt their children. They belong where they are, some say, and who are we to suggest that we can offer them something better?

Twenty million kids.

Most of these kids’ greatest hope is to be rescued from a life of almost certain malnutrition, illness, abuse and/or exploitation, illiteracy, and poverty by being given the opportunity to grow up in an orphanage. And those of us who think adoption of these kids is a great (if not idealistic) idea can help by means of financial support—or making the life-altering decision to go there and physically care for them.

And hope that something will change.

20 million orphans in Africa…can anyone do anything? Part 2

Lisa J. — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:44:22 +0000

The person I mentioned who knows a lot about Swaziland is an American who is actually moving his family there to help take care of some of these orphans.

For a brief moment, I thought I had a brilliant idea. Remember Operation Babylift? In case you don’t, here’s the Wikipedia entry for it:

“Operation Babylift was the name given to the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States and other countries (including, for example, Australia, France, and Canada) at the end of the Vietnam War (see also the Fall of Saigon), during April 1975. By the final American flight out of South Vietnam, over 2,000 infants and children had been evacuated. Along with Operation New Life, over 110,000 refugees were evacuated from South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War.”

How about another Operation Babylift, this time from Africa? Plenty of Americans (and Canadians, Australians, and Europeans) would welcome these little kids into their homes…right?

As with most great ideas, if it really were so great, someone else would have thought of it already. Turns out, it’s not that simple.

20 million orphans in Africa…can anyone do anything? Part 1

Lisa J. — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:21:51 +0000

A recent UNICEF report says that the number of “AIDS orphans”—children left orphans because their parents have died from AIDS-related diseases—in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to almost double to 20 million by the year 2010.

20 million. To give that huge number some perspective, it is approximately the combined populations of the US’s six largest cities—New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, and Phoenix. That is a lot of kids.

Yet even that number does not represent the reality of the situation. I spoke with someone who knows a lot about Swaziland—which, along with Botswana, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe, has some of the world’s highest rates of AIDS and HIV—and this person told me that the 20 million figure is merely the number of “total” orphans. In other words, kids who have no parents, but who have an older sibling, relative, or neighbor looking after them, are not included in that figure.

Given that, the number of actual orphans is anybody’s guess.

Can anyone help these kids?

What about older children? Part 3

Lisa J. — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:53:17 +0000

This topic of adopting older children brings up a related issue: adoption by a single parent. In general, I don’t recommend single people adopting babies or small children. Babies and small children are so need-intensive that even two parents can be taxed to their limits, let alone one.

Although, again, adoption of a baby or small child by a single parent can be preferable to whatever the alternative may be. If the adoptive parent is a family friend or relative, if a relationship already exists, if the child is being rescued out of a situation worse than being raised by a single parent…then okay.

But I digress. If a person finds him- or herself in midlife or later without a child, or if he/she finds him/herself divorced or widowed with grown children, what could be a more wonderful solution for both, than for a single person to adopt an older child? I will suggest one condition, however: that the adoptive parent and the adopted child be the same gender. But again, the exception would be if a relationship already exists.

What about older children? Part 2

Lisa J. — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:05:38 +0000

About those older kids…the ones who “age out” of the foster care system with no “forever family”….

I suggest that adopting an older child or teenager would be the perfect midlife project for a couple or single person who reaches his/her/their forties, fifties, or sixties in good health and with financial stability.

Sometimes these kids come in sibling pairs or groups. Come to think of it, it’s not so different from acquiring a set of stepchildren in midlife, is it?

Someone adopting an older child, or a pair or group of older children, can have a second family to raise after their biological kids have left home. Or someone who never had kids—who was too busy with career, or whose marriage didn’t work out, or who couldn’t have biological kids and was financially or emotionally unable to consider adoption in their younger years—what more perfect way to fill the void than to adopt a kid or two.