Carlos, 14, Guadalupe, 13, Maria, 12, Selena, 10, Nasa, 9, and Max, 7, are siblings who have spent over 4 years in foster care and on May 23, 2019, Steve and Rob Anderson-McLean, a gay couple, decided to adopt all 6 of the siblings so they could keep them all together.

During an interview, Steve said, “We fell in love with them instantly. We fell in love with the pictures. Before we ever even met them, we had fallen totally in love with these six kids.”

Rob and Steve met 18-years-ago and got married afterward, the couple raised the 2 sons of Steve, who are now 21-years-old and 25-years-old.

Rob works as an engineer for the Norfolk Southern Railway and Steve was a wedding planner, he is now a stay home dad.

Steve added, “I think we’ve always known that we wanted to expand our family and continue on being parents. We always kind of say that we weren’t done yet being parents to young people.”

Steve and Rob decided to adopt kids from a foster home.

Rob said, “It would be great to provide temporary help to kids in the foster system, but at the same time that could be emotionally exhausting. So even though we had two adult kids, we still had enough pep and energy to raise smaller children and to actually adopt them and not just foster.”

Rob and Steve saw Carlos, 14, Guadalupe, 13, Maria, 12, Selena, 10, Nasa, 9, and Max, 7, on an adoption website that was based in Ohio.

Steve said, “We received very little information at first, and then as time goes on and they got to know us a little bit after they read our home study and our profiles, then they supplied us with a little more information” and added that “it was kind of a long process.”

The couple met with the kids for the first time on July 2 at a bowling alley in Columbus, Ohio.

Rob said that they were nervous and added that the kids were nervous too.

Steve explained their emotions, “There’s always a little bit of an awkward start there because you’re thinking potentially these could be the children that are going to be in our lives forever.”

He added, “and like I said, we were already involved with them. We hoped they liked us.”

Carlos, 14, Guadalupe, 13, Maria, 12, Selena, 10, Nasa, 9, and Max, 7 and are all biological siblings, they managed to stay together for over 4 years in foster care.

Steve said, “In foster care, young kids are adopted very quickly. The kids that are nearing teenage years or are teenagers, unfortunately, they’re the harder kids to place.”

Steve added, “They had had some interest in just the younger two or three, but the case worker they had really wanted to try and keep them together.”

Rob and Steve said that they just hate it when siblings get separated, and this was the reason that made them adopt all 6 of the siblings.

On the day that the siblings were adopted by Rob and Steve, they were all emotional. Also, they wore “Anderson-McLean Established 2019” matching t-shirts and were surrounded by their friends and relatives.

After the process was completed, Steve said it was a “very visual sigh of relief from everyone.”

Rob added, “There’s a lot of insecurity for kids in their situation. They’re always worried that something is going to change. Even though we tell them that we’re going to adopt them, and everyone’s telling them this, they’ve been let down so many times by other adults.”

And said, “So that’s why it was such a relief to finally have the finalization because they know it’s permanent. They’re not foster kids anymore. They can take that title away from their name.”

Rob also admitted that becoming a foster parent is really rewarding and said that the kids astounded him after knowing that they have been separated from their parents and have been living in a foster home for over 4 years.