The parents of this month's feature family are Mark and Tammy. Their story begins over 16 years ago in Pennsylvania. Tammy transferred from a private school to a public school in her junior year, and this is where she met Mark. They began dating that summer and continued doing so through their senior year. This led to a pre-engagement. Having graduated Mark decided to join the Coast Guard. Mark really wanted to get married, but Tammy got a case of cold feet and they broke up. Two years later Tammy looked him up through a mutual friend, when Mark just happened to be home on leave. After that it was like they had never
been apart. They spent every minute together, and Mark proposed before he went back.

Mark and Tammy are now living in Virginia with their eight children, four girls and four boys. Their ages range from 15 down to 7 months and include biological, adopted and foster children.

I asked if they always knew they wanted a large family and Tammy answered, "Yes, lots and lots of children," while Mark replied "Yeah, I think ever since I started thinking about having a family."

In addition to raising their family, Mark works outside the home and Tammy provides daycare to two children and is a full time college student pursuing her nursing degree and planning to go on to obtain an MD.

Tammy told me that she finds the hardest thing about having a large family is budgeting money and keeping up with everyone's activities. She says it is difficult to make sure the kids have what the need and that there is still some money left over. The children also participate in activities which can run into some conflicts. "There are times when 3 kids need to be at different places and it takes some creative solutions to deal with that."
It also seems that for Tammy the worst part of having a large family is stretching the budget. She stated, "I think very few families have everything they want all the time, but its much more challenging when you are dealing with a lot of kids."

There is of course a flip side, and those would be the easiest and best things about having a large family. Tammy feels that the easiest thing is knowing that the children always have another sibling to talk to and play with. The best would be the qualities that the children learn by being a part of a large family. They can negotiate, share, compromise, help, and a hole host of other things. They also "realize what is important as far as material things verses other things because they see it in action in a large
family." In addition to this Tammy tells me that the children have learned to be more accepting of others. She attributes this to the fact that they are in a large family and have also experienced things through fostering and adopting children, such as cultural differences.

I asked Tammy to share with me about becoming a biological, foster and adoptive mother. I requested that she tell me what she did first, how, and why. "Believe it or not, we'd always talked about having some of our own children and adopting." She further went on to tell me that they married in 1985, and had their first three children in 1986, 1989, and 1992. "We started fostering in 1993 when our youngest at the time was 18 months old. We've been doing it ever since." "We started fostering with the intent to adopt, but, strange as it seems, we've never been able to adopt any of our foster kids. Foster care however,
is an excellent training for the adoption of older children and special needs children."

Mark and Tammy's first adoption was that of a newborn, who is now 5 years old. Tammy had placed a resume at a pregnancy crisis center. She said she never really expected anything to come of it, and they were really looking to adopt an older child. One day she received a phone call from a lady who said she had seen their "ad" and would they adopt her son who would be due in a few months. They began the process of meeting the birth mother. A few months later, Tammy attended the birth of the child and then brought him home for the hospital. This is an open adoption and each year their son gets to see his birth mother and half siblings. Tammy said that she is happy that he has this as he grows up.

Mark and Tammy with their children

Their other two adoptions were found through the Adoption Resource Exchange of Virginia, where they placed inquiries on several sibling groups. A social worker for a brother and sister called them, and from there they began the process of getting to know and eventually adopting the children. The children were adopted three years ago at the ages of 8 and 10.

Mark and Tammy added their seventh child 3 years ago with the birth of their fourth biological child.

The eighth child in the family right now is a 7 month old baby boy, was placed with the family in December for fostering.
I asked Tammy to share some advice with us for other people who have or want to have a large family, to which she replied, "Network with other large families for support. We can learn from each other. It really takes another large family to understand the issues of a large family. Someone with two children just can't totally understand having 6 or 8."

Tammy and Mark's parents all still live in Pennsylvania and I asked if they felt it was more or less difficult having their extended family living far away. Their families are very supportive of their large family and it's difficult having them so far away. It's not just about the physical support but also the moral support. Tammy said that they do visit and since they have a camper and love camping it is a great way to do it. They have been able to find support close to home through their friends. I was curious to know how they found friends that were accepting and not in awe of the size of their family. Tammy said that she met her best friend, who also has four children and 4 step children, while their daughters were in a play together. Mark has also met people through his work.

It all sounds great, but Tammy did tell me there have also been difficulties. People didn't or don't understand why they want to adopt since they have 4 biological children. There are those who don't believe that a couple can handle a large family. They tend to shy away from placing more adoptions with a family that they already think is large enough or too large.

To lighten this up a bit, I asked some fun questions. Where would you take the whole family if money weren't a concern, you could go anywhere, stay as long as you like, and spend what ever you wanted? The answer I received, "This may sound cliche, but Dinsney World. There's something for everyone. Just to have fun without the restrictions of, that's too much money. We could just do whatever we want and not worry about anything."

What would the children choose? One would like to take everyone to Cairo, Egypt. She wants to be an Archaeologist specializing in Egyptian artifacts. Another would like to go to New York City for Broadway shows, since she's an aspiring actress.

Now of course these trips are with the whole family, but where would parents of a large family like to go, by themselves? Tammy said, "Alone? Just Mark and I? Wow, Anywhere! I would love to go to England or Hawaii maybe."

I wanted to end this on an up beat, and so I asked Tammy what she felt was the most rewarding experience of parenting, here is her answer; "Gosh, there are so many wonderful things. The feeling that you can never love someone with the intensity that you feel for your children. Watching them grow and learn and become their own person. Its amazing. At times I almost can't wait until they grow up so I can see what they'll do with their lives."

Is that all? Well, of course not! I do have to end the feature some time though. I really couldn't share every up and down that has occurred in this family with just one article. I do sometimes feel like I'm cheating families because I can't tell everybody everything that I learn during the interview. I truly feel privileged to get to hear and learn so many things. So, I do the best I can and share with you a part of what has been shared with me. I hope you've enjoyed learning about Tammy and Mark's family. I especially thank Tammy for sharing and being so candid and easy going throughout the interview!