Written by: Joni, adoptive mom to gorgeous Adam, writes about transracial adoption changed their lives and touched the lives of their families.
I often get asked what’s it like raising a black child? I usually retort back what’s it like raising a white child? Depending on how patient I feel that day and the attitude of the asker I break it down into “A child is a child, they all need the same things regardless of them being pink, purple or orange”
Our infertility history is vast and devastating… We tried various infertility treatments after a couple of years of trying by ourselves, suffered numerous pregnancy losses and in the end it was an Endocrinologist who said to me that if I were his wife he would definitely consider adoption and that with my condition further treatment was a complete waste of money and time. Time we could’ve spent nurturing our child already. He reminded me that pregnancy is only for 9 months whilst parenthood is FOREVER.
Adoption was always in our plan, have 1 or 2 biological babies and then adopt…. It was something my husband and I were so sure of and something we decided way before we got married. We were just lucky we got to adopt first.
Our decision to adopt transracially was actually the easiest decision for us as during our years of infertility we volunteered at the local adoption home. We LOVE those babies whose only “sin” was to be born. A baby is a baby no matter what race. All babies have the same needs. All babies need love and family regardless of their birth circumstances.
We registered with Jhb Child Welfare to do emergency foster care and this is when we met the little boy who changed our lives (including our parents lives) forever… Baby N was dropped off with us the day before Christmas and stayed with us for 3 weeks. I still remember phoning my Mom (they were on their way to us for Christmas) and telling her we’ve got a baby for Christmas. She immediately went shopping and boy did they spoil him. It was during that period that we all realised that adoption was definitely our route and we grabbed at it. I took my parents to the adoption home and they loved it. My folks fed and played with the babies and toddlers, they showered Baby N with real love those days over Christmas and when we said we’re definitely going with transracial adoption, my Mom and Dad said “at last”. They were hoping we would adopt Baby N as we had all bonded with him, but unfortunately for us but fortunately for him, the social workers already had his adoption plan. He was placed with a wonderful family 3 months later! I would phone and check on him daily.
As Jaco and I had no issues with race and had already decided we wanted one of the millions of babies out there needing a home immediately. My Mother-in-law was convinced there was a Caucasian baby out there for us and she started a search not knowing that we had already started the screening process. We knew that they would support us in the end and it was just the idea that was at first foreign to them. I think it took her a month of phoning everyone she knew Doctors, Churches, Social Workers and the like that she realised we were in for a very long wait and she wanted to be an Ouma again soon. We also took them to the Adoption Home for a visit and they were hooked and we were encouraged to adopt quickly, as Ouma wanted to knit. By that time we had switched SW’s as the process with Child Welfare would’ve have taken in excess of 18 months to finalise as they are critically short-staffed. We made “the phone call” to a variety of agencies and spoke to a variety of Social Workers and none of them “gelled” the way we wanted. It was a chance call to the Catholic Women’s League (in early May 2009) that I got through to Connie and I immediately knew she was the Social Worker for us and the best was she had an opening for us the next morning at 08:00 for a briefing due to a just cancelled appointment. We knew then it was meant to be as all the obstacles we faced with Child Welfare just vanished.
We started our screening process immediately and after 12 weeks of intense screening sessions with Connie, psychological assessments, marriage counselling, psychological counselling and home visits we were cleared to adopt. Then started the waiting game for us, we didn’t know our son had just been born. 8 weeks after having been presented and accepted by the adoption panel we met our son and two days later we took him home. I remember phoning my Mom on the Wednesday to say the court had placed Adam into our custody until his adoption was finalised, the tears of happiness the laughter….
My folks immediately changed all their long weekend plans and went shopping, I remember my Mom phoning me every now and again during their trip to Jhb to ask how her grandson is doing? What we’re feeding him, have we changed him etc. etc. We took him shopping and my folks proudly showed him off and spoilt the living daylights out of him. Jaco and I probably held him 5 times in 5 days as my Mom and Dad couldn’t get enough of their first grandchild. The next day was a public holiday and boy did friends and families turn up in droves to welcome the new family member! My nieces were soo excited they had a baby to play with, Jaco’s Aunt & Uncle were immediately besotted as were my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. The support we received from some of our friends was incredible whilst others fell by the wayside as they couldn’t put their predjudices aside. This didn’t bother us as we agreed that Adam would have no negative influences in his life. What did surprise us and taught us a lesson was that the family/friends you expected to accept Adam easily where the ones that didn’t and the ones we suspected as maybe being predjudiced weren’t!
When my in-laws came down for their first visit a few weeks later it was love at first sight, Ouma and Oupa were hooked on their first grandson. Oupa had already specially ordered his “Vellies” and Ouma had knitted herself silly.
My grandparents were ECSTATIC, Grandpa had already decided his Xhosa name “uFikile” which means “he has arrived”! They devoured the photos we sent and sadly Adam’s great Grandpa died before he could meet him but he loves his great Granny who he calls “Ganny Dahling” or just “Dahling”.
Our immediate family is very very close with Adam’s grandparents (both sides) absolutely besotted with Adam. Apart from my one Uncle, Adam has been totally accepted by our families with our cousins actually pointing out little familial and genetic traits that Adam has “inherited” from each side of the family. Our family considers Adam to be biologically our child and is a real and genuine part of all our family gatherings (we have many all the time), his great uncles adore him and always arrange boys stuff for them to do, our cousins fight over whose turn it is to babysit him, his great aunts go overboard shopping for him….
Adam has a very close bond with his cousin Katje (14 yrs old), my sister-in-law does astrology charts and she reckons it’s because they’ve been together in numerous past lives…. Seeing them together it’s difficult to not believe that as being true… Its soo weird they communicate without speaking (she intuitively knows what he wants) and she’s about the only person Adam will actually listen to when he’s being naughty!
We forget Adam is black and it’s only when people point it out do we remember. I don’t see a black child, I see my son.
My sister and brother although overseas made trips to South Africa to meet their new nephew and it was love at first sight. They spoilt him, couldn’t stop kissing and loving him.
The majority of our friends and family have been wonderful but we have had a few nasty instances with the public, certain family members and close friends. A mother’s love is a wonderful thing as my love for Adam is so real that I was initially hurt when certain family or friends stopped inviting us over but it didn’t bother me! If they don’t want to be a part of my beautiful son’s life it really is their loss and I don’t want people like that in our lives in any case.
My advice to couples contemplating transracial adoption is to take the good with the bad. This world is full of idiots who don’t think before they utter their absurdities and the rest are just uneducated and genuinely curious.
