When I was an adoption novice I was appalled to learn that in the adoption community there is a hierarchy. Really. There are gradations of value in people. Fees are different, depending on the race of child you request. The lighter the skin, the higher the fees.

Our most recent Ethiopian adoption was about $14,000, including lodging and airfare. Fees for the adoption of a Black baby in the US can cost even less than that. Adopting a Korean baby these days will set you back $20,000 or so. And a Caucasion baby adopted privately in the US or from Eastern Europe? Hold on to your hat, because those fees can be $30,000 or more.

How can this be?? And WHY the heck in this day and age should cost be related to color?

Here's how it often works. A couple dreaming of having a baby, after a struggle with infertility, will finally begin to speak of adoption. For them this is a painful step, because it involves giving up the dream of a child born to them.

They decide they want the 'next best' thing, a baby who people might mistake as 'their own'. Since demographically most adoptive parents are white, that means a sizeable portion of waiting couples are dreaming blonde and blue-eyed.

Some couples are open to any race from the get-go. But they are the minority. In many cases, it is only the news of long waiting lists and high costs that get people expanding their horizons and weighing other otions. 'Guatemala? Maybe Korea?' goes the conversation. 'They're still fairly light-skinned, right?'

The cold hard fact is that for many, many, perfectly nice, perfectly decent people, Black babies are way, way down on the wish list.

Adoption agencies will tell you that this is why the fees for a Black baby are so much less than the fees to adopt a white baby. They lower the fees simply to make it easier to find families for the Black kiddos.

People requesting white babies will swear up and down they're not racist. "We just don't feel 'equipped' to parent a Black child," they'll say.

I agree-- no one should feel forced to parent a child that they're not equipped to parent. I understand that adopting transracially puts your child's adoption status out there for the whole world to comment on. That can be a daunting thought.

And I am not trying to belittle an infertile couple's loss. It is a devastating occurrence when you long for a baby and your body turns traitor. Deciding how to go about building a family is a very personal, very difficult decision.

But here's my beef: I wish that people would not be so darned mixed up about the value of people in the first place. I wish that skin color had nothing to do with how long it takes to find a family for a child. I wish people could see what is so obvious to me-- that Black children are just as valuable and precious as blonde Scandinavians.

And I wish I could adequately convey to the fearful, the fence-sitters, the people not wanting to be conspicuous, how LITTLE difference skin color makes once you have that child in your arms. How the joy of parenting these kids is SO worth fielding occasional questions from strangers.

I look at my beautiful Ethiopian daughters. I am unspeakably privileged to parent these precious ones. No, they don't look like me. But they could not be more mine.

Not if their hair was straight like mine.

Not if they had my coloring.

Not even if they were the spittin' image of their daddy.

Their faces are etched on my soul. They are mine. They are not second or third or fourth best. They are the very best that this life has to offer.

The truth? I pity the people who right now are wishing their lives away, waiting for the 'right' color of child to come along. If only they could see what they're missing.