wondering

Wingless I just had to comment on how sweet that comment from your son to his step-dad was. My daughter was raised (and eventually adopted) by my 2nd husband. He has always been "Dad" to her. One of my most priceless photos was taken at her wedding during the father-daughter dance. You only have to look at the tears in both their eyes to see how close they are. Trish

It's such a joy to read these posts ... I hope this thread will keep attracting posts and new topics for 'raising large families' will continue ~ thanks so much, NancyNic

Hello, I am the youngest of 3-kids with a total of 5-years from oldest to youngest- 2-girls, 1-boy. My husband is the youngest of 6-kids with 14-years between the oldest and youngest- 3 and 3. (He's 5-years younger than his next brother.... he definitely was a SURPRISE!!!) We were able to have our daughter, but no more children. The international adoption of our son was at times, a nightmare. We said, that was it. No more. Well, then we were asked to parent a relative and both of us said yes within a few hours. (When speaking with our 12-year old daughter about taking in this child, she told us flat out and quite bluntly too, "He's a child that doesn't have a home and he needs a family to love him. Why would you even consider saying no?" I told her we would have more expenses and things would be tighter- monetarily speaking. I was immediately told, that "Family isn't about money. He needs a loving family and we'll all love him with all of our hearts." She said, "She had plenty of stuff and would happily share everything (she has) and we'd make it work." Gee, out of the mouths of babes. I won't say "never" again. I guess, if it's meant to be, it will happen again. My husband and I won't go actively searching to add to our family, but we also won't turn down a child. We have found, the Lord will provide. K.

We are not a large family yet, but hope to be! I have told people before that this adoption thing is addictive! Both my husband and I come from families of three and agreed upon four as a good number for our family . . . but now I'm thinking maybe five . . . We have two daughters now and are waiting to be matched again. A year or two after each adoption, I've gotten the baby itch again (does anyone know how many children it takes for the itch to go away?). So we're just looking forward to whatever God has in store!

I have only 1 sister and no brothers. I never wanted a large family and my intent was to adopt 1 child......but after we started fostering we then decided to only take in sibling groups. If you are aware of DCS.... generally there are a lot of big sibling groups. We adopted 4 children last April and in August their mom had another little girl ...so, we now have 5 children....I wonder how many more....hehe.......Sometimes God has his own plans for your life and that is what we must follow......

Lisa - I so understand the feeling of following what God had intended, rather then forcing your own hand. Numerous times I have found my life somewhere, and myself saying, "But this isn't how I had planned it would be." Two years ago the most perfect words were told to me by a friend counceling my tears .... "You wanna know how to give God a good laugh? Show him YOUR plan." :D It isn't always easy, but I find myself far less dissapointed and much happier when I am waiting to see what He has in store, rather then fighting for the way I thought it should be. Wingless

I am the product of a very large and blended family. My Mother is my Dad's 2nd wife; he came into their relationship with 4 sons; three from his first marriage, Jacob age 13; Jerry age 11, Jonathon 9, and between the marriges he had a relationship that produced Marla then 2. He and Mom married and after 6 years had Me, Benjamin, Gregory, Darrell, Justin, Timothy, Andrew and Anthony the twins. Funny thing is after 6 years of trying Mom didn't think she could concieve; after 8 kids she didn't think she could stop! :( Due to a mental illness in my Dads 1st wife all of his sons lived with us before I was born and I was probably about 11 before I discovered they weren't Moms "belly-babies" too. When his daughter Marla was 13 her Mom sent her to live with us so finally I had a Big Sister. ;) There were a total of 12 kids....Mom never formerly adopted any of them as their Mother would not let her; but she couldn't have loved them more and the term *step* anything was forbidden in our home! My hubby and I have three kids, Keri age 32, Kia 27 and Derek 24. I contracted Lupus during my pregnancy with Derek so we said no more due to health concerns. We'd planned on 4 or 5. He has an older sister and younger brother. I have a reunited daughter Tovia age 31, his step-daughter and if you can repeat all of this without looking you are better than I am 'cause I had to stop typing and count several times just to post this! :) MissyM

My husband and I have 6 bio kids. We really want to adopt, and have just started researching our options. It seems that having 6 kids already will not make things easy for us. (not that I planned on it being easy LOL!) I had looked into the foster system a year ago or so, and they told me we had too many kids already. We are very interested in international, especially China, as dh speaks chinese and has spent a good deal of time there. But the government policy there is no more than 5 kids already in the house. The more I look around, the less hopefull I am getting. Those of yu with large families who have adopted, how did you do it? I would love any advice on our best routes to follow.

but then again...God does have a sense of humor, doesn't he? I always wanted two (came from a family of 2) and my husband thought 2 would be nice (came from a family of 3). So, we have three beautiful bio children, with only 5 yrs separating the oldest from the youngest. We tied our tubes and said we were done. And then God whispers adoption into my husband's heart :). Boy were we shocked!!! Now we are waiting on a beautiful little boy from Ecuador. We have learned our lesson.....never say never! Chante'

Adopting with a large family My husband and I have 6 bio kids. We really want to adopt, and have just started researching our options. It seems that having 6 kids already will not make things easy for us. (not that I planned on it being easy LOL!) I had looked into the foster system a year ago or so, and they told me we had too many kids already. We are very interested in international, especially China, as dh speaks chinese and has spent a good deal of time there. But the government policy there is no more than 5 kids already in the house. The more I look around, the less hopefull I am getting. Those of yu with large families who have adopted, how did you do it? I would love any advice on our best routes to follow. ------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- We had 4 bio kids when we started Foster parenting. We now have 6 we have adopted and hope to adopt again. I think there are countries that have policies such as limit in kids in the home, age, etc but not the same policies if you are willing to take a child with special needs. There are also so very many kids in the US that are waiting for homes.

Check out the African nations, there are no limits on numbers of children already in the home. Same thing with Haiti, several countries in Latin America and India. China is one of the hardest to adopt from. Not only do they have tighter age limitations and number of children in the home issues, they also have an income requirement that becames rather large with a large family since its $10,000 per family member. China, Nepal, and several other SE Asian countries are NOT programs for large families (though Hong Kong and Korea can be). Nepal is actually worse than China, requiring only 1 child in the home with an exception of 2 in the home if they are the same gender. They also only allow the adoption of one child. I'm told they routinely split even twins for adoption from Nepal. But, not every country is like that at all. We adopted from Sierra Leone and it was no big deal. We want to start another SL adoption after the first of the year, considering up to 3 children, and its still not considered a big deal.

Thank you for all that info!

Colorbind, thank you! I think we had China in our heads and were getting a little tunnel vision. I will definitely check out all those places. We have a very good friend from Ghana, and cousins who were marries in Botswana, so African nations would be interesting to check out. Thanks again! I am off to research!

New to this forum (actually forum's in general), but wanted to add my two cents I was raised by my aunt and uncle and am the youngest of two in that family. Speant some time with my mom and step-dad and am the oldest of four in that family. Talk about confused birth order. My grandmother had 12 kids and I always wanted 12 also! DH also comes from two sets of parents and was the oldest of two in one and oldest of 5 in the second. We always planned on adopting, though he only wanted 4. We have 3 bio kids (grown and gone from nest), we helped raise 3 nieces (grown and gone, but come back with 5 grandbabies for us to love frequently), we adopted 4 (foster-adopt-individual), and are relicensing to foster and possibly adopt 2 more! God is good!:cheer:

I don't know if anybody is still interested in this info but Korea only allows for four children still in the home at the time of adoption and Ethiopia to my knowledge has no family size limit so long as financials are in order.