It’s been a decade since we began our parenting journey, and here’s what I want you, someone new to this journey, to know:

You do not have to have it completely figured out, but you do need to be figuring it out.  Your education as a transracial adoptive parent should never stop.  It should continue from now until your dying day. This means not only listening to adoptees and learning about adoption norms (such as how trauma can change the brain, what adoptees need from their parents, etc.) but also about what your child of color needs.  The best people to help you understand this are people who racially match your child.

I was a little girl with three brothers, anxious for the day when I didn’t have to bribe them to play dolls and dress up with me. I asked my parents almost every night for a sister.

I didn’t know back then how much of a commitment that was, but my parents eventually pursued the idea of adoption. They took in two girls, ages 3 and 5. I was in heaven.

MISUNDERSTANDING ADOPTION.

It wasn't that I was against adoption, I just didn't understand it. Sure, I had watched movies or television shows in my years growing up, where the topic of adoption was mentioned, but nothing significant, nothing that would resonate with me. To be honest, I viewed adoption as only something people who couldn't have children biologically did as a Plan B. I was clueless!

I did not know adoption was meant to split you wide open, revealing the ugliest and most radiant parts of you all at once.

Another Christmas passed without expectation of or the existence of little toes to kiss, bellies to tickle, tears to soothe, and the next cold January arrived all too quickly.