How to Find African American Adoptive Parents for Your Baby

by | Aug 27, 2021 | Birth Parent Blog

Pregnant woman walking in city on sunny day looking online for African American adoptive parentsIn today’s adoptions, you can choose everything in your adoption plan, including choosing your baby’s adoptive parents. Some expectant mothers choose to look specifically for African American adoptive parents because they want their child to grow up in a community that reflects their race. Other women have expressed to us that they want their child’s parents to understand the unique obstacles that Black children in America can face. Most of the time, birth mothers who are African American themselves desire that their baby grows up in a home that can better understand their racial identity.

Lifetime Adoption can help you find the perfect African American adoptive parents for your baby. Lifetime works with many African American adoptive couples and single adoptive mothers who are eager to welcome an African American baby into their family.

Adoption Gives You Choices

Lifetime Adoption wants to make the adoption process as simple as possible for you. With today’s adoptions, you’re in the driver’s seat. You can choose everything in your adoption plan, including choosing your baby’s adoptive parents. Some birth parents feel strongly about the race of their child’s adoptive parents. If this is important to you, we can help you find a family that you’re comfortable with.

Your Adoption Coordinator will answer all your questions and give you any necessary information you need, but the decisions about your child’s adoption are really up to you. The three main choices that modern adoption gives you include your baby’s adoptive parents, the type of future contact you’d like to have, and how things go in the hospital when it comes time for you to deliver.

Your Baby’s Adoptive Parents
In today’s adoptions, you’re able to choose the adoptive family for your baby. Your values about race are important to Lifetime Adoption. Our sister site, African American Adoptions Online, was uniquely created to provide African American birth mothers the opportunity to find adoptive parents of their ethnicity. Of course, besides race, there may be some other preferences about the adoptive family you should consider, including:

  • Do you want an adoptive family that lives in your state, or in your area?
  • Do you want a stay-at-home parent for your child?
  • Are you hoping to place your baby with a married couple, or are you also open to a single adoptive mother?
  • Do you want to place your baby with an adoptive couple who already has a child?
  • Are you open to a multi-racial family?

You can easily search for adoptive parents on Lifetime’s website using our Search Families page. On this page, you can choose to search for qualities that are important to you, such as location, race, and family type. Or, your Adoption Coordinator can send you links to adoptive parent websites for you to browse through.

As you look through adoptive family websites, be sure you consider what is most important to you and what you feel is most important for your child. If you need help, your coordinator is ready to support and guide you anytime you need it via text message or phone call to 1-800-923-6784.

After you see an adoptive family you’re interested in, your Adoption Coordinator will connect you to them with a phone call. You will get the chance to ask them any questions you want. If you feel that they aren’t the right adoptive parents for your baby, that’s fine. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right family.

Amount of Future Contact
If you choose to have an open adoption, you can maintain contact with the adoptive family and your child through phone calls, letters, emails, and even visits. Open adoptions are growing in popularity as birth parents want some level of future contact with their child.

Many adults who were adopted have great relationships with their birth mothers and birth families. If you’re not sure about future contact, make sure to talk about it with your Adoption Coordinator. Be completely honest about what you want and what you think will be best for your child.

Your Adoption Hospital Experience
It’s common for women choosing adoption to worry about how things will go down at the hospital. The more you can prepare and plan, the more confident you will feel. That’s why at Lifetime, we encourage you to create what’s called an “adoption hospital plan.”

Your adoption hospital plan will allow the adoptive family, the hospital staff, and Lifetime to know exactly how you want the hospital visit to be handled. Having your plan in place before you go into labor allows everyone (especially you!) to concentrate on the birth of your baby. To get started, you might ask yourself a few questions, like:

  • Am I OK with the adoptive family I chose being present in the delivery room? Or, should they stay in the waiting room?
  • Do I want the adoptive family to take part in the birth process, and if so, how?
  • Do I want to be admitted to the hospital confidentially or recover away from the maternity ward?
  • Will my other child(ren) be at the hospital?
  • Do I want any of my family members, close friends, or other people in my support system to be with me at the hospital?

African American Adoptive Parents – Lifetime Adoption

Lifetime Adoption is committed to helping you throughout the process. We’ll help you with every detail of your adoption, especially in the area of your racial preferences. We support your preferences on race and promise to work hard to make your adoption experience successful.

We will help you find the perfect adoptive family who is ready and excited to adopt an African American baby, and you can have peace of mind knowing a loving family is raising your child.

If you have any questions about how to find African American adoptive parents looking to adopt, or any part of the adoption process, call or text Lifetime Adoption at 1-800-923-6784 to speak with an Adoption Coordinator. They can get you on the right path towards starting your adoption journey!

Heather Featherston

Written by Heather Featherston

As Vice President of Lifetime Adoption, Heather Featherston holds an MBA and is passionate about working with those facing adoption, pregnancy, and parenting issues. Heather has conducted training for birth parent advocates, spoken to professional groups, and has appeared on television and radio to discuss the multiple aspects of adoption. She has provided one-on-one support to women and hopeful adoptive parents working through adoption decisions.

Since 2002, she has been helping pregnant women and others in crisis to learn more about adoption. Heather also trains and speaks nationwide to pregnancy clinics to effectively meet the needs of women who want to explore adoption for their child. Today, she continues to address the concerns women have about adoption and supports the needs of women who choose adoption for their child.

As a published author of the book Called to Adoption, Featherston loves to see God’s hand at work every day as she helps children and families come together through adoption.

Read more about Heather Featherston

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4 Comments

  1. Jerica Swiger

    I would like to learn more about adopting an older African american child.

    Reply
    • Lifetime Adoption

      Hello Jerica,
      Thank you for your interest in Lifetime’s adoption programs. We’d love to help you learn more! You can take the first step in your adoption research by calling Lifetime Adoption at 1-800-923-6784 to learn more.

      Reply
  2. Tracy Benniefield

    I would like to learn more about adopting an new born or twins African America child.

    Reply
    • Lifetime Adoption

      Hi Tracy,
      Thank you for reaching out to learn more about adopting with Lifetime! We encourage you to visit the Hoping to Adopt section of our website to learn more about our program. You can also call Lifetime Adoption at 1-800-923-6784 to speak with one our adoption professionals and get your questions about adopting answered.

      Reply

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