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I agree that this is an area of deep trust. Our family does this all the time - the shifting of kids over a certain age to a cousin's house for a week or a couple of days over the summer. It's a hoot. We'd love it growing up and the kids love it now. I guess they love coming here because we don't have children and thus we indulge them.
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As kids, we loved it. My daughter's actually a little young for it but very adaptable and I was having a rough July. Back 1st week of June, I had the twin boys (age 8), a girl/boy sibling pair (12 & 7) and an only child (girl; age 10) who's like...my third cousin or something...visiting. My munhkin loves it, to have them all there. I start to feel a little frazeled a few days in...but my sister came by every morning to help and really, my munchkin, as the youngest is the hardest. Kids seem to get easier as they get older.
We have a very big (huge) extended family. Of my 4 grandparents, not one had less than 8 siblings. I would never want an imeditate family that large, but the assortment of cousins and such is nice...but we grew up together, the cousins and I. We camped and fought over bunk beds and tried to drown each other in the pool. Of course I trust Cousin B to watch my 6-year-old for week when the 6-year-old in question is begging to go see her boys.
I guess that kind of thing with an a-family might be okay...if it developed over time...and I don't think she meant "immediately" just as a distant hazy future type of thing...but that she's looking so far ahead and thinks that shoud be the end goal made me realize that I had to think about not just immediatly post-birth but what do I want 10 years from now...and that's scary.
I have my counseling appointment Friday evenings so yesterday...and when I ran it by him...he said, I really don't have any advice other than that "placement is a lifetime decision so you have to look into that hazy future and decide what the goals are. You can' figure out how to meet them if you don't know what you want." But I dont' think he has experience in adoption and I'm not sure how to find somone who is.