To Sing Frogs Chapter 3e

I paid to put the boys in jail for fifteen minutes at the local town days’ celebration. This is during the time we were meeting with the adoption agency.

Even Amy was beginning to dig deeper in the questioning. “How does your adopted child get along with the others?”

“They’re just like any siblings. There are good days and bad days. Sometimes they fight and argue. Other times they’re best friends.”

“Does he feel like he’s different?”

“No. We’ve always been very open in talking about the adoption. He understands the difference between a “tummy child” and one who has been adopted, but he doesn’t feel like it means he has less of a claim to our family.”

“Does he speak with an accent?”

Jane smiled. “We got him pretty young. He was just starting to speak the other language. Learning English was just a continuation of learning to talk. He learned to speak English the way he heard it.”

“How do people react when it’s obvious one of your children is from a different culture?” I would have said different race because there is a difference and that was my real question. Amy could never be so abrasive.

“It depends on the person. Usually it’s positive, sometimes almost too much so. We just don’t let it bother us.”

At some point in the meetings Jane made a recommendation. It changed everything. “You two have always said you would eventually do another adoption to get a second girl.”

Amy nodded briskly, extended her arms, turned her interlocked fingers outward, then contracted back from her cheerful stretch while she smiled and sat forward. “We want her to have a sister.”

Jane returned the nod. “That’s great. It brings up several items for consideration. First of all, if you are insistent on getting children as young as possible your waiting period could turn into more than a year for each adoption. There are also the time commitments to consider. Those would double with separate adoptions. You might want to think about cost as well. If you were to adopt two children at once it would be more expensive up front but you’d save money in the long run. Lastly, if you are willing to increase the age of one of the children and accept a child of up to five, it would move you quite a ways up the waiting list.”

Brilliant! Amy was all smiles. It was like when you were a kid and thought you had opened all of your birthday presents. Then someone gave you one more. We told Jane we would make the change.

At the end of the next meeting Jane told us we might want to consider what size we would allow our family to be.

“Excuse me?” That’s what I said. Amy was smiling. I definitely wasn’t.

“Well, sometimes parents see sibling groups larger than what they had originally intended, which they might have considered. However, if they didn’t prepare their paperwork for a sufficient number of children they can’t consider them without starting over. There are also instances when the parents get “in country” and meet another child who simply steals their hearts. If the applications have not planned for the potential of such a scenario it can’t happen without starting over.”

Amy looked hopefully at me with long eyelashes over big doe eyes. “How big do we want our family to be?”

“Da-da-de-da-duh…” Though my speech was impaired my mind exploded with responses. Did I miss something? Two boys plus two girls. Four, right? Okay, I get the part where nature did a third boy in a row. I don’t quite understand our decision to adopt another boy. I wouldn’t change it though. So, two more girls. That makes six, right? “Da-da-de-da-duh …”

“Sweetheart, if there was a sibling group of three would we really walk away?”

I looked at those innocent eyes like they were a baited trap with a hair trigger. We would if we didn't have a choice! “Da-da-de-da-duh …”

“I think we should put three.” Amy sat up straight and smiled confidently as if there was nothing left to consider.

“Tha-tha-theee-thah-three?”

Jane must be a religious person because she appeared to understand my speaking in tongues. She reached across the table and grabbed my arm to calm me. “Just because you put ‘up to three children’ on your application doesn’t mean you intend to, or that you will adopt three children. Sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. You just seem like the kind of guy who likes to have lots of choices. This will do nothing more than give you more options. Why don’t you guys go home and think about it. We don’t have to decide just yet.”

“Ba-ba-be-ba-bye…”

“See you next week.”