I had read in our facilitator's info packet that if you request two children you are often offered three. My husband and I were going to ask for two, but discussed what would happen if we were offered three. We knew we wouldn't be able to say no to that one extra mouth to feed (and Nike's to buy, and PS games, and, and, and). Since we were going to be first time parents, our SW tried to talk us in to just one child, or two at the most. She didn't want this to "be a lesson in behavior management", and told us we could always adopt again later. First, we wouldn't be able to afford to adopt again later nor do I care to go through the paperwork process again, and second, I've had extensive experience with learning disabilities, ADHD, emotional impairments, and my parents adopted a ten year old boy (I was 12) who had been abused in every way possible and life was hell for quite some time. I was in tears about this and thinking how unfair for someone to decide this for us. She eventually recommended two, and if we had three they had to be healthy.
That was the long way to agree with momraine. I think your homestudy would have to be updated so that you can get CIS/INS approved for one more.
More on making matches. Our oldest girl has been learning English in school for the past year. That's how we were chosen over the Italians
We have a small pond with fish/turtles/frogs, and the photo of me that was sent to Poland was next to the Rhine River. One of the photos of our oldest daughter shows her with a fishing pole (though she won't be fishing in our pond) - it's a match. Our youngest two were listed as "dynamic", which I have interpreted as hyperactive, and our homestudy indicates I work with ADHD children - another match. Country western dancing was listed as a hobby of ours in our homestudy, and a recent report of our youngest daughter indicates she "feels the rhythm" - Poland thinks this is a match, but they haven't seen my rhythm! I've yet to figure out how our son was matched to us - we'd all have the same hair color if mine was natural. (Apologies to Mom2_4 for copying her humor.)
A previous referral of three boys indicated they all had some sort of learning disability and/or speech/language impairment. I definitely thought they were referred to us because of my background with those areas.
It would really be interesting how they make these matches. I can definitely see matching interests when adopting older children, but I wonder how the younger children are matched with families.
I assume Italians tend to adopt 1-2 children, rather than the larger sibling groups that Americans adopt. I wonder how many of those are Polish-Italians. Here in Germany my husband works with a Polish guy who actually has Norwegian citizenship (I think moved to Norway 20-some years ago when he was 20-something and he's been in Germany 5-7 years now).