It’s easy to focus on all the bad going on in the world. From climate change, to the drama going on in politics, to crime and accidents, it seems never-ending.
But, I’ll tell you, there really is a lot of good going on, and you’ll see one prime example with this next story.
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This is Steve and Rob Anderson-McLean.
The couple from Pittsburgh already have two children from Steve’s previous marriage.
When their two children got older, they decided they weren’t done raising kids.
After researching about adoption, the Pennsylvania couple of almost 20 years were matched with six siblings from Ohio in 2018.
After hearing about another family who adopted siblings, they vowed they wanted to do the same after learning that so many siblings are often broken up.
When Steve and Rob saw the kids’ profile on an adoption website, they instantly knew they wanted them to be part of their family of four.
“We instantly fell in love,” Steve Anderson-McLean told ABC’s Good Morning America .
And the kids did, too.
“After the first week they were asking if they could stay forever,” Steve told TODAY Parents in an interview.
“We took them to the park and to the zoo. We played in the yard. That was all new to them.”
“Having fun was new to them.”
The six siblings, aged 7 to 14, had been in the foster care system for almost 5 years until June 2018, when they lived with Steve and Rob full-time.
In an emotional courtroom on May 23, 2019, the adoption was made official.
“The judge asked, ‘Do you understand at this point forward they are your children? They are just as much as your biological children.'”
“Obviously we knew that, but when I looked up and saw all those eyes, it was very emotional,” he told Good Morning America .
“The kids felt this huge sense of relief,” Steve told TODAY Parents.
“They had been let down by adults so many times in their life, and were nervous it wasn’t going to happen.”
“We never imagined we’d be lucky enough or blessed enough to have six.”
While the brothers and sisters’ lives have changed for the better, so have Steve’s and Rob’s.
“We’ve known them for less than a year, but at the same time, it feels as if our emotional bonds were years in the making,” Rob said.
“There are no rules as to what can constitute a family, and the love that we share.”
h/t: Good Morning America
