[another2]

Last year we were in process to adopt from Latvia and Russia at the same time. (We lost our Russian referral, so we only completed one adoption.)

We found a HS agency that was certified for both countries. The SW wrote one HS (full-price) and then charged us a small fee to modify it for the other country. We submitted two I-600A's -- one for each country. The only detail requested by BSCIS was that we provide a cover letter explaining what we were doing and wanted (approval for 2 children Latvia, 4 children Russia = total of 6 children). Each HS had to be written to approve us for the total of 6, not just the number from that country. This is so the BSCIS can make sure you meet income requirements, etc. if ALL the children are there.

We used adoption agencies in two different states and the only issue we encountered was that one agency required that the first child needed to arrive 6 mos before the other (for appropriate bonding time). This would not have been a problem since Russia is so much slower than Latvia. But not all agencies have this requirement.

Since we were unable to complete one of the adoptions, we did not actually have to change any of our dossier to reflect the new child. However, having adopted a few children already, I suspect we would have had to update the HS and provided medicals on the newly adopted child prior to bringing the second one home.