Transracial Adoption; I Am Going to Disney World!!!

As someone who grew up in quite a #diverse neighborhood, I didn't even know choosing your own #race was a choice in #adoption, I thought we were just one ol big box of crayons that after you spew out your life savings, one of those crayons comes shooting out at you and you don't sleep for months and your family begins.  And you probably go to therapy.  But there it was, staring us in the face on our check list "Please choose which race you are interested in adopting."  Then they list them out, like a dessert menu.  Then you check off everything from Asian to Pacific Islander.  There are two schools of thought on #transracialadoption.  You get the people who are all for it, saying as long as they are in a loving home, that is all that matters. "Love is love", "A #child is a child".  "There are YouTube videos on how to do black girls' hair!"  "Get an Asian one, they will be smart!"  These are all direct quotes.  Embarrassingly from people I know.  Then there is the other side, "Growing up being adopted is hard enough, why add race into the mix?"  "There will be a loss in identity." "White parents will 'white-wash' their child of another race." I feel like most people are passionate about whatever their side is.  One of my friends who is also adopting only checked the #Caucasian box, stating "I want them to be able to tell their own story.  If they are a different race than us, they do not get that option.  If they do not want to ever tell anyone they are adopted that is fine with me, and this way they have the option."  I understand her view.  Not saying it is my view, and for me, I believe adoption will be a huge part of our lives, we will be part of the crazy verbose adoption community, we will be adoption advocates that blab on and on about it for days (And by we I mean me). So I am not seeing our specific family as having adoption as a secret.  We will be those crazy people linking our lil adoptive arms at the top of the lush green mountain yelling about how awesome we are...I mean how awesome adoption is ;)  I feel we should leave it up to each family to decide and never judge their choices as far as race goes.  Everyone has their reason and I can understand both sides.  If someone did not want to adopt a child simply because they have stereotypes and negative feelings toward the child's race, well THEN we can judge.  It is called the "I can judge a racist" rule.  And I just made it up. 

Here is some interesting info.  Our first agency recently took off the "biracial" option on their check list.  They said they did this because they found many couples/ #adoptive parents checking off only their race and biracial (mainly another race mixed with their own race) assuming the child would look at least KIND of like them.  If you know anything about biracial children, just because they are biracial it does not mean they will be the perfect mix of the two different skin toned parents.  #Children are not ice cream, mixing equal parts chocolate and vanilla, getting a perfect swirl of color.  I know #biracial children that are very dark skinned and some that are lighter than me (who knew it was even humanly possible to be ghostlier than my #Irish skin?!).  So the agencies' point was people are checking off races for the wrong reasons, so they just took that crap off and figured if you are going to be open to biracial #AfricanAmerican, you sure as hell are going to be open to 100% African American.  I liked that they did that.  2 points for the agency we did not go with.  SIDENOTE:  I actually would prefer my child having darker skin than myself to avoid what I call sun bouncing syndrome.  The sun basically hides when she sees me and if I do find her I just get cherry red shoulders and sweat like Jackie Joyner.  Why did I just reference an athlete from the 90's?.  Anyway, as a 6 year old in #DisneyWorld, where all children's freaking dreams come true, and everything sparkles, I didn't bounce that Disney sun and I got sun poisoning. Shoulder's bubbled up like a witches nose, unable to raise my arms in glory as I whisked through space mountain. I'm lying.  I wasn't even tall enough for #SpaceMountain, but a girl can #dream.  Let me have my fake Space Mountain moment.

Waiting to go to Disney with my child that doesn't scare the sun away,
Bumpless Baby Mama