My folks always wanted a large family and my mom particularly wanted a girl. All of their kids were boys so both the number and gender mix were a bit of a disappointment to them. They solved that problem by going the route of adopting more children to fill out our family to its current size.

My folks have raised 14 children, three of them home made, 11 adopted. I’m the second oldest. My adopted brothers and sisters are from mixed races, several from outside of the country and several with physical challenges. When you have 8 or more kids and want to adopt more the adoption agencies will only offer you special needs kids, some with severe physical challenges. All were adopted as infants, except Adam, who came home from an orphanage in Vietnam at the age of 2.

We always knew when mom was going to get the itch to add a new kid to our family, it was about the time when the youngest started to stop being a baby. The real surprises were when, through weird issues with adoption agencies, we would end up with two kids the same age at the same time. So we had the twin experience with a couple of my sisters and with a pair of my brothers.

My wife and I have 4 kids and have made the decision to stop there. But I can well understand why you’d feel the pull to have another, just to watch the cycle of sibling behavior develop. It’s a great thing to get to watch.