We got home 1 year, almost 1 month ago with our two (non bio related) kiddos, and as much as my hair is grayer than ever (seriously as I haven't had time to color it properly!!!
), and it has been THE MOST STRESSFUL year of our lives...........but we wouldn't change a thing!
Our kiddos are awesome and are finally showing signs of starting to truly attach and feel secure (well, the older one is not really there, but any progress is good at this point!). SO, my question to you would be how old of children are you considering as all the age brackets seem to have their own traumas and stresses? Ours are younger (2 now and 3.75 years old) and even b/t our two we are seeing totally different issues that they (and we!) are dealing with.......so I guess in my mind, I would add in the age I was open to in deciding how tough it would be for 2 at once.............not sure if that is 'valid' but does seem to make a differnce for some!
I can add that it has taken a long year to get to this point, but we are finally seeing signs of our two liking each other. Older son is starting to 'look out' for little sis, and she is really starting to follow him around and need to be around him. Wasnt' that way for a VERY LONG time, but it is happening now, and we hope that will mean something to them as they grow up (that they have this overall experience together as a team), so to us, that was one benefit of two at once.........not to mention being scared of doing all this over again the second time around!! After spending 3 weeks in Moscow in the dead of winter last year, DH looked at me after a LONG day and still said, glad we don't have to go through this again!!!
There are pro's and con's either way. We have had to work very hard to give both all the attention they need, and didn't realize just how much that would be (and we thought we had a 'clue', but we didn't!), so, once that reality set in, it wasn't so bad!
Sorry.....my edit here.....finally read all the posts.........and the money does play in, much as we don't want it to. Its not a matter of 'baby shopping' to me, but for us, the reality of finding the finances to make it happen twice vs once (at least for us that was how we saw it). To save a significant amount of money in total, and be able to decrease your family stress more quickly is a realistic component (lets be honest, many people having bio kids look at their finances before having another child, and use the costs to decide if they should.........just looking at the money at a different timing in the process!). SO, if you know you want two kids........... and the money, the second time putting the paperwork together, THEN traveling for a month AGAIN feels wrong, well that should be something to consider (in MHO......).
For us, I knew that DH would NOT be too quick to want to do that trip again, therefore, despite the tougher year it has been for us getting attached/bonded/acclimated/etc........it was worth it to have our two kiddos that we have dreamed of for years and deal with the longer/tougher transition time so that we could have the long term family we dreamed of.........just had to add that!