Five, you say? Perhaps next time...

While we "officially" stated an interest in adopting two siblings the first time around, I knew that with the increased flexibility of public adoption (e.g., having general parametres, and being able to consider matches outside of those...unlike international adoption, where the ages and number of children are much more specifically identified in the homestudy, and approved as such at the Ministry level) I would be open to "at least" three or so at once, depending on the circumstances. More accurately, the thought of three or four was actually kind of exciting. For the few years I spent browsing photo-listings on a provincial public adoption website, I always gravitated toward the larger sibling groups. While Geoff was overall really drawn to our kids' profiles right off the bat, the thought of three seemed a bit daunting to him initially. I was not-so-secretly quite pleased about the number!

After almost-but-not-quite being chosen for our three at Christmas, our first call about a potential match through our local agency was for a sibling group of two girls. All right. Two was ok, but didn't really get me worked up. And I always envisioned a boy or two in there somehow. And after all our focus on transracial and cross-cultural adoption, envisioning what our family might look like, these little ladies could not have been more blond-haired and blue-eyed (not an issue - just ironic and a bit amusing, that's all)! We took the match very seriously, but did not feel great about it in the end, and declined it. The day I called with our decision, the matching worker thanked us for being thoughtful and honest, and then proceeded to say that they had some other sibling groups in mind if we wanted more information - one group of three (ages 0-3), and one group of four (possibly going on five), ages 0-4 (which included a set of twins!!!). Well, that news got my heart beating a bit. Although, with a tiny bit more information (we never did get as far as official information-sharing meetings), there were some other factors which made us a bit hesitant. But, there were boys in each situation, and more than two, and those facts alone piqued my interest greatly. The workers' eagerness to tell us about these larger sibling groups also indicated that there may not be too many prospective parents out there considering that many children at once.

The reason we never explored the local matches further was that we were also told there had been a call to our agency regarding our three, as their workers were back to the drawing board and wanted to know if we were still available. And here we are. But this post isn't really about our current family...

So, in addition to browsing the provincial photo-listing frequently over the years, we also have a basic profile entered into that system. Last week I attempted to update it to show that we are not currently available for matching, having just had a placement, but the site was slow and I gave up. Yesterday our worker left a message suggesting I update our online profile, as she had received a call from another jurisdiction wondering about a sibling group of five children (after reviewing our profile, I noticed that I had entered up to 4 children as a possibility...not wanting to rule anything out). Anyway, we are now updated, so our worker will hopefully not be receiving calls about us for the next while at least. I emailed her last night, and included a little joking comment about considering five "next time". She emailed back today to see if I was just kidding, or whether I was "even remotely serious about considering" a sibling group that size "down the road"...uh...hmm...is that because she is remotely serious that they might keep us in mind for sibling groups that size in future? Based on the past few months, it does seem like there are large sibling groups waiting, that's for sure. And just yesterday, I received the Duggar book I ordered, hoping glean a few tips on running an organized household and raising respectful, responsible kids...

Hmm...