[anneo]

Hi.

We're looking into adopting twins from Russia, and while I know that a lot of factors determine how soon everything is completed, we were wondering if people who have adopted twins could post about how long the entire process took. We're just mainly wondering if we're looking at having an obscenely long wait or if since most people adopt just one child, if there are an abundance of twins out there.

Thanks

[Sohmakun]

You may want to ask an agency that works in Russia for more details. Most sibling groups in Russia that are NOT twins are usually 1-5 years old because Russians like to have their children far apart in age.

[sak9645]

With just about all countries, the number of families requesting twins is FAR greater than the number of sets of twins available.

Twins are fairly rare in any population, and they are especially rare in a population of abandoned or relinquished children, unless they have special needs.

And families seem to think that adopting twins is a good idea, since they won't have to go through two adoption processes. They tend to forget that twins and other children in multiple birth situations are more likely have special needs, especially special needs related to prematurity and low birth weight, than singly born children.

In fact, to avoid having a lot of disappointed families, some agencies impose restrictions, beyond those imposed by the various countries, on who may request twins. As an example, they may say that you can't request twins unless you are childless and have an income over a certain figure. If you request healthy twins, you can almost certainly expect a longer wait than a person requesting a single child or non-twin siblings.