For those who adopted again - did you adopt transracially again?

We also adopted from foster care. We chose not to specify race on the second adoption, just as we hadn't for the first, but since the second time around we had our son, we were seen as a good fit for an AA child which we were matched with. At this point I honestly wouldn't match with a cc child. Even if your daughter doesn't bring it up, you should talk to her about "being darker" as you say. It's important at an age where most every discussion is about similarities and differences.

My husband and I have actually talked a lot about this. We have 2 teens (technically our nephews, but we are raising them and have been since 04) who are cc like DH and I. We have adopted twice, both boys who are Latino. We both feel very strongly that when we adopt again, the child needs to be either cc or Latino, or that we need to adopt 2 children of some other race. We don't want one child who doesn't "match" someone else. The big boys are both cc, the little boys are both Latino, so we either need a "matching" set of 2 children of any other race, or a third child who is CC or Latino to match the kids we already have. I think it is great that you are thinking about this :-)

We were hoping to adopt another AA or biracial child when we started pursuing our 2nd adoption. Days before we sent in our application to apply for the AA program we were asked to adopt a friend of the family's baby. That is who we are matched with now. The baby boy is CC. I've been very torn from the beginning about it, but we plan to adopt again and we will specify AA so that S has a sibling who is "brown like me" as she likes to put it. :)

Our DS is only 4 months old, but we have talked at length about this too. We have always planned to adopt 2 children, and since DS is AA/CC, we decided that we will specify that our next child be AA or AA/CC. Right now the only reason we can see that we'd adopt a CC child would be if the child was a 1/2 bio sibling to DS. As for timing, we plan to start the home study process when DS turns 2.

We were not open to any CC matches. We know there are so many families who feel they can only adopt a CC infant...and it honestly didn't matter to us at all. Because we have one child of a different race it seemed to make sense to adopt another....so we only sought matches with children who were biracial or AA.

DH and I are CC, and our older child is Hispanic. When we started thinking adoption #2, we researched and found a lot of literature about how valuable it was for transracial adoptees to have siblings who were dealing with similar issues about being a different race and/or ethnicity from their parents. We toyed with saying that we would accept anything but CC, but we eventually decided to say on our profile that we were especially interested in a child who was at least in part of Hispanic heritage. (Of course being Hispanic can mean very dark skinned from the DR or blond and light skinned from PR, or almost any other variation you can think of. As it turned out, our second child's heritage is pretty similar to our first's, but we're just lucky it turned out that way.)

We adopted our 5-year old DD internationally from Guatemala, and our 2-year old DD from foster care. We stated that our preference was a Hispanic child, and received her placement 4 days after we were licenced.

Sort of off topic, but also funny-Our oldest is Guatemalan-American. He is 98% Native American (probably Maya) based on a DNA test. He is pretty dark. Our younger son's birthmom is from the DR and birthdad from Mexico. He is much, much lighter skinned than our oldest son. When we found out his birthmom was from the DR, we assumed Nico would be very dark, but he isn't at all. And his hair and eyes are brown rather than black like our Guatemalan son. You really never know!

When we first started trying to adopt, in 1976, we said that we would be happy to adopt transracially. We maintained that but, for about ten years, we were told that we couldn't have a black or biracial child. We had to wait and compete with the tons of other white couples waiting for the few white babies. We finally got our first baby in 1983 and second in 1986, both white. Then, in 1989, while we were in Germany, we were offered the chance to adopt an AA/CC baby boy. When we came back to states, in 1990, we applied again. The agency in Las Vegas had lots of non-white children who needed homes, but refused to let white couples adopt them, including those like us, who all ready had one non-white child. We didn't think we would be adopting there, but then they called us about a baby who was special needs because of very serious health issues. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed when they told us she was white, but of course I got over it. I just wanted my third son to have a sibling that wasn't white, so he wouldn't be the only one who was different. The next time we applied, I said that we wanted a child who had at least one black birth parent and the other birth parent could be any race at all. The next baby we had the chance to adopt was AA. Our third son, who was four and a half at the time, was thrilled to have a baby brother who looked more like him. It wasn't that it was of earth shattering importance, but I thought it was preferable. I know several white couples who have adopted one black child who is their youngest child and the only non-white child. One family I am thinking of was hoping to adopt a second black child, but the father got sick and couldn't work and they just couldn't come up with agency fees. I think, in those cases, it is especially important to have close friends whose families are the child's race or multiracial. The best friends of that family have two AA kids, and they see each other all the time, so I don't think the one child is being disadvantaged by being the only different one. So I guess, to try to sum it up, I think it is preferable to have more than one child of a different race in the family, if possible, but I don't think anyone should ever pass up the opportunity to adopt one child because they worry that they might not be able to adopt a second one.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts/advice! Still deciding on if to do foster/adopt or infant adoption, but have decided for sure to now pursue a biracial or aa sister/brother to add to our family. We are in Kansas. Any experience or information on foster or open infant adoption providers in Kansas, please PM me.

Agree with most of the other posters! Our first son is Latino and, when we started thinking about #2, we knew we did not want to adopt a CC child. We initially wanted to adopt another Latino child, but realized that it didn't matter as much as long as he/she wasn't white!Our second son is AA and our older son loves that he and his brother are both "the same and different." :)

We wanted to adopt AA from the start. First DS was biracial (AA/Filipino). We specifically wanted another AA or biracial child the second time around. Every person in our family (extended) is CC, and we felt it was important for our children to "have each other" as far as being racially different from us and facing similar issues. Second DS is AA. DS6 is quite a bit lighter than DS4, and has light brown/hazel/green eyes. THey both consider DS4 "brown," but DS6 describes himself as alternately "yellow," "tan," or (his current) "dark white." If we were ever to adopt again (VERY unlikely, would have to be a bio sibling to one of our boys), we would only consider AA or biracial.

Our situation is like mediate's. We were open the first time to any race/ethnicity. DS is hispanic and was very aware that he had "golden tan" skin and we did not. That confirmed our decision to be open to any BUT cc in our second adoption. DD is AA. We live in an area where the school makeup is pretty close to our family in percentages 40% white, 25% hispanic, 10% black, and 5% asian. That was something we looked at too as we made the considerations - we lived in the house prior to both adoptions.

Yes, when my daughter was 3 we adopted again. We had agreed that would would only be interested in a minority. We were matched with our sons birthmother before he was born and had formed a great relationship. She was unsure of the father. My son was classified as bi-racial upon being born. He's now 3 yrs old straight blonde hair and blue eyes, full Caucasian, but all part of God's plan !:grouphug:

Now that we are adopting again, "D" would be more than happy to tell you how important it is to him that his sisters are "brown". He often sits at the dinner table and counts "3 brown and 2 like sugar" and says "Baby A is brown like chocolate like me!"