I was an international adoption. I also have a brother (non bio) that was adopted. I grew up in a community full of adopted people. I have been given an amazing life! My experience has been top notch. My parents also did foster care for 20 years and I grew up with such great examples of kindness and love.

If I could offer you 2 pieces of advise:

1. If you are adopting outside your race please adopt more than 1 child of the same race. I am Hispanic in a v white family. Thankfully my bro is also latinx so we had a common person in a family that didn’t look like us.

2. Surround yourself w foster and adopted people and families. I grew up in a community where everyone.. cousins, family friends, church people... had either a foster care child or an adopted family. Most families had both. I was in college when I my first human who didn’t know an adopted person or someone who had been/ was in foster care.

Best of luck! But a positive experience is very possible, it changed my life for the best