Here’s another article that references the perils of placing biracial babies in adoptive homes.  Is adoptive a word?  Anyway, this just reinforces my strong desire to adopt a brood of biracial kids.  I guess it’s not going to be that difficult once I’m ready.  Getting ready is the difficult part.

Adoption fulfills dream of blended family for Erie County couple

By DANA MASSING

A chatty little social butterfly, 5-year-old Grace Ann May can be sassy and likes to show off a little.

That’s how Annette May describes the daughter who is most like May was as a child.

“Other than she’s brown and I’m white,” May said.

Grace is one of two girls and two boys who became part of the May family, of Greene Township, through adoption.

Gracie, as she’s called, and two of the others are biracial. The children, who range in age from 5 to 12, were joined by Annette and Scott May’s first biological child, a daughter born on Mother’s Day.

“White, black, purple with pink polka dots, it really doesn’t matter to us,” Annette May said. “Everybody deserves a family that loves them.”

…The Mays’ four adoptions were done through Catholic Charities, even though the family is Presbyterian. The agency works with families of all faiths. It had more adoption options and lower fees than other agencies, Annette May said.

Heather Hough, adoption counselor for the agency, said cute babies with blonde hair and blue eyes are the easiest to find families for.  “Everybody wants those,” she said.

Some children up for adoption have physical, mental or behavioral issues, said Ellen Miller, Catholic Charities’ special-needs adoption coordinator. She worked with the Mays on their adoptions.

The Web site for the Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network, or S.W.A.N., states that “special needs” refers to “children waiting to be adopted who are older, of minority heritage, part of a sibling group or have a disability” or “for whom finding an adoptive family may be more challenging.”

“A lot of our kids, their need is they need a family more than (they) have special requirements,” Miller said.

Annette May said one of the most difficult parts of adopting was answering questions about what she and her husband would accept in a child.

“You can’t make those decisions when you have a child naturally, so I felt very awkward feeling like I could make those decisions in this circumstance…  We had fertility issues,” Annette May said. “We’re kind of traditional folk. We never really financially could afford in-vitro (fertilization) or things like that, and I’m just not that type of person, not interested in going through all that. It sounds very cliché, but as a kid, I always thought it would be very neat to have a blended family.”

That family started with Grace Ann. She was 10 days old when the Mays took her home. They were early in the adoption process and hadn’t expected results so soon, but no other family wanted a biracial baby at the time, Annette May said.
“We’ve always been open to pretty much any age and any race,” she said.

When Gracie was 6 months old, the couple heard from Miller at Catholic Charities again.

“She called and said, ‘We have a biracial little boy, born at Hamot yesterday, needs somebody to pick him up tomorrow. Are you willing?'” Annette May recalled.

“At the time, we just kind of thought, ‘This is so unusual.’ We had those thoughts of, ‘People say it takes forever. It’s a boy and a girl. Are we ever going to have the opportunity if we turn it down?  And so we said yes, and I thought, ‘Hey, people have twins all the time. What’s the big deal? We’ll just get it all out of the way at once — diapers, bottles, the whole thing.'”