One or two? Boys or girls?

A&O, the only couple to be approved by our local authority before us, came over for coffee yesterday and brought their lovely daughter with them. She has really grown since we last saw them at the December New Family Social event and it was the first time she’s come to our house, so she was going everywhere, being curious about everything in the house. It was such a pleasure to see her pulling out books and playing with everything she could get her hands on.

We caught up with her dads and talked about stuff we’ve all been up to. They asked us whether we were still intending to go for two children and whether we had thought some more about whether we’d prefer the boys or girls. A lot of friends have been asking about this since we were approved. We said that in principle we do still want two. Glen and I hadn’t really talked about it in depth again since panel, so we talked about it after they had gone. We know that many people start with the idea of adopting two children but then decide to start with one, see how that works, and then maybe go for the second one. I can see the point. A child who’s been in the care system requires therapeutic parenting and a lot of time and patience, so most people would agree that one at a time is more than enough. However I we like the idea of having two. Two children growing up together learn to share and to understand others’ needs. They always have someone else to interact with (be it playing or fighting) and I also like the idea of them having someone else at school who will look out for the other. Of course we could adopt one and then another, but if a child is going to have a brother or sister, it may as well be their actual sibling. There is always the possibility that if you adopt one child, their mother may have another one, but that may or may not happen and I don’t really like the idea of hoping that a mother who’s had a child removed has another one just for our benefit. I think we’ll have to play this one by ear. If the right child comes along and there’s only one, we’ll consider him or her and we’re certainly not going to turn a child down just because they haven’t got a sibling.

Regarding the question of whether we’d rather have boys or girls, we are both leaning towards boys at the moment. There’s the fact that most of our friends have boys. And we do feel that we are more familiar with being a boy. But, again, we may change our minds if the right girl comes along or if there’s a brother and a sister that would make a good match. At the end of the day, if we were birth parents we might have a preference but we wouldn’t get a choice, so we’re open to whatever gender our social worker thinks is a good match.