The More the Merrier? (or Scarier?)

Owlhaven asks this:

"When you think about enlarging your family, what are some of the questions and concerns that come to your mind? Was it or is it a difficult or an easy decision to declare yourself ‘done’ with having children? If your family is already complete, feel free to share the questions you had as you faced the issue in the past. When you decided, did you decide once and for all, or did you find yourself revisiting the question over and over? I was chatting with my sisters about this over Thanksgiving, found it a fascinating topic, and thought it might be interesting to discuss here as well."

We've been thinking alot about this lately. Ds has been thinking about it even longer.

When we decided to begin the adoption process for Miss I, we just knew someone was missing, felt like we needed this other person in our lives. This time it feels more like it's about needs than wants.

When we decided to adopt transracially and internationally, we felt it was important that our child not be the only child of color in our then-very white family. Then she came home, and she wasn't sleeping and neither were we, and I thought maybe we were done afterall. Then there were many days when we went back and forth -- one day we would name him or her, the next we would declare ourselves complete.

Give it six months, wise women said. Six months for our new family to feel normal, six months before making major life decisions.

Third mom's question and the subsequent answers remind me of the reasons we felt that commiting to Miss I meant commiting to a second Ethiopia adoption.* My husband reminds me that I am practically a crazy woman practically all the time and was through the entire adoption process. (He rejects this characterization of the conversation).

And then he reminds himself of all that he saw in Ethiopia, all the children he could so easily love
, and he seems to think maybe we are just crazy enough . . .