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If the Call for a Sibling Ever Comes

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My youngest child is four. I’ve given away almost all of the baby clothes and supplies. It’s been years since I changed a diaper or mashed a banana. I’ve forgotten what used to feel second-nature when it comes to mixing up formula and arranging sleep schedules. After a decade straight of babies, my life is changing. There are aspects that are more challenging as we raise tweens and stand at the cusp of adolescent issues, but in many ways the demands of parenting are so much less exhausting now that everybody can sleep through the night and put on their own socks.

In the stillness of a quiet night, sometimes I think about the possibility of siblings for my adopted children. We’ve worked so hard to be sure that legally our kids have the right to have that sibling relationship preserved. And then the phone rings unexpectedly from a number I don’t recognize and I wonder if it’s a caseworker making that call about a baby and we’ll have to decide what to do. Do we preserve the status quo of this new parenting season, or do we open up our lives to a sibling for our child?

I know if that moment comes, I will be scared. I will wonder what we should do. I will count up how old we will be as we sit at that high school graduation. I will worry and wonder about a court case that could end differently than we imagine. I will think through all the implications, count the cost and then I hope I say a confident, “Yes.” Yes to the uncertainty and upheaval. Yes because sometimes parenting decisions can’t be about you.

My kids may have decades with me, but they will have a lifetime with their siblings. Long after I’m gone, I pray they will be celebrating Thanksgiving together. When they face life’s challenges, they will need each other. The short 18 years I put into raising a child will pay off for eternity for me, for this new little one, and for the sibling who gets the gift of living life with their biological relative. This is a gift I can give my child in saying “yes” and it’s a gift I could deny them if I decide these years of sacrifice would be too hard.

I watched the documentary “Three Identical Strangers” and it touched a nerve. Watching these men grapple with the longterm implications of being separated from their brothers, I realized it was a pain my children have suffered that I was never able to fix. I cried as I heard one of the fathers exclaim that he would have taken all three if they had just had the option. I can imagine the fear he would have felt if someone had told him he could have triplet sons. I can imagine the mental math as he calculated cribs and carseats and diapers times three. But as the father of that grown son, he knew it would have been worth any cost to allow these brothers to grow up together. Hindsight is 20/20 and it’s a gift I have now as I see how short childhood is and how long the sibling relationship can last.

A quote from that movie stuck with me. An aunt of one of the boys said simply, “They belonged to each other” when describing the instant connection they had and how they interacted. I want that to be the thought I focus on if that call ever comes. These siblings belong to each other. Can I do what it takes to preserve that relationship? Can I prioritize it over my own comfort and the desire to preserve the new normal we’ve established?

I know taking a new sibling of a child isn’t the right decision in every situation. I’m very thankful we’ve been able to raise children who would have ideally stayed in a home with their sibling. I know that decision was agonizing for the parents involved. I don’t want to judge it and I know I have benefitted and I believe my kids have benefitted from being raised in my home. But if I have the option to give my kids the gift of a life with their sibling, I want to do it. If it’s at all possible, I want to do it. And even if in the moment I don’t want to do it, I may need to do it. I don’t know that there’s a greater gift I could give my child.

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