The Oak Family
When Lio and Song got married, they knew they wanted children. Not a child. Children.
Children had an innocence to them that was charming and it always warmed the couple's hearts whenever a child showed interest in science.
That and their science-focused burrow encouraged having more than one for the sake of strong genetics to combat issues like diseases and deformities. While their marriage was mainly based on love, the burrow approved of their mixed genetics a child would carry.
Their first child was a mandrill. That was not a figure of speech. He was a literal mandrill, a primate they had experimented on to recreate the circumstances that allowed Mutes to roam the Earth surface purely so they could reverse engineer it and make an antidote. Instead of working on an antidote once he started talking, they came to love him like he was their child. They gave him toys and read to him and somehow managed to recover a piano for him to play. It didn't matter if he wasn't human, he was theirs. They just kept that fact from Dr. Emilia and the rest of the lab.
That said, the burrow was waiting for when they had a human child. It was not unusual for married couples in their burrow to wait a bit longer than normal to have children. They were all focused on their advancements in science and technology, and children inevitably got in the way of that. Even with their scientific focus, there was still that expectation of children to keep the burrow's group immunity and numbers up.
If they hadn't planned on making Kipo into a half-mute, they would have happily announced their pregnancy.
Kipo came with risks. When they experimented on her during development and gave birth to her, there was an underlying risk that Song wouldn't be able to produce more children. It became more of a pipe dream to have a bigger family once Song mutated into the mega monkey and Hugo had disappeared to remake himself into Scarlemagne.
Now…
"Benson! I had the bathroom first!" Kipo shouted early one morning.
"You always take too long! I'm meeting up with Troy this morning for our cooking lessons with Cappuccino!" Benson snapped back.
"So? I'm going on a hike with Asher and Dahlia today! We need to get an early start, or we aren't going to reach where we want to go and get back on time!"
"Would you two keep it down? Some immortal bugs are trying to get some final minutes of sleep! By immortal bugs, I mean me!" Dave could be heard from his and Benson's shared room.
"Agh, Mandu! Careful with your tusks!" Wolf yelped from the kitchen. "I know they're still growing, but you almost made me spill the flapjacks."
Mandu squealed an oink of apology.
At one point in time, their family included Lio, Song, Hugo, and new baby Kipo. Now their family included Lio, Song, growing teen Kipo, teen Benson, pre-teen Wolf, Dave, and their pet mute pig Mandu. Sadly, Hugo was no longer with them.
It didn't matter if the other children were adopted. Their family had grown just as they wanted, and they wouldn't have it any other way.
The End