[2xaround]

I think I may have officially gone in sane and here's why.

My husband and I are waiting on our referral of a baby girl right now, but continue to have on-going conversation about our future adoption plans. Although we would both love to adopt a second child from Guatemala I'm just not getting that warm, fuzzy feeling that Guatemala will have conformed to the Hague in time for us to adopt a second child. We had discussed trying to adopt two children at once, however, just couldn't figure out how we could do that financially. As time goes on I find myself wondering more and more if there is some way to begin this process a second time before the US ratifies the Hague and because my husband will be getting a pretty substantial bonus this fall, we may be in a financial position to get started on a second adoption after all. The problem now is that all our paperwork was completed for the adoption of 1 child and neither our home study or placement agencies will authorize the adoption of two unrelated children at the same time.

I know I have read posts from others who have adopted two unrelated children, but wonder how to do this without the support of the current agencies.

For those who have gone through this, did you contract with a second home study/placement agency and did you find that this caused any problems?

If you have used two different agencies, could you PM me with the name of the agencies you used?

We have our 171H which allows us to adopt one child, so would we need to complete another I600A?

We have discussed adopting a child from other countries, but Guatemala is the only country that both my husband and I are 100% on the same page. We are also in agreement that with three grown bio boys, it's important that our little girl have an adopted sibling to share her life with and if that sibling can be from Guatemala, that's a huge bonus.

I'm hoping that someone can give me some much desired help and advice.

Debbie

[annaguat]

We adopted two unrelated children at the same time. As far as I know you need a social worker to approve you for this, your placing agency will need to agree with this and the placing country. Also you will need an additional dossier and you are right your I171H needs to be aproved for two children. The I171H is based on what your homestudy is approved for. Best wishes on your journey. I hope you can find a way to do this. Anna

[SKL]

My agency is pretty supportive of adopting two at a time and I always said I'd like to adopt two if they were twins or young siblings; and that eventually I wanted to adopt a second child in any case. So my agency recommended from the start that I do my I600A and homestudy based on two kids instead of one - just in case. When I realized what a pain the paperwork was and the situation in Guatemala was getting more and more uncertain, I asked what I would need to do to adopt two at once. At that point, the only thing I needed to do was get three copies of all my dossier documents instead of two. Although I did have to pay most of the fees x 2, this did not apply to my home study and its paperwork / inspections / etc., so that was a big help.

I realize you are too far in the process to do exactly what I did, but since you are still waiting on your referral, I wonder if it would make sense to switch agencies to one that is OK with two at once. You would probably need an addendum to your home study, and while I'm not an expert on this, I get the impression from hearsay that most homestudy updates are not nearly as painful or costly as the original home study. As for the I600A, I would double-check as to whether you need to change it to "2" kids, as that was stressed as important by my agency when I was filling it out. You wouldn't want this to hold up your process if you could change it now.

[DFNY]

Hi. When we did our homestudy, we specifically told our SW that we wanted to be approved for 2 children, even if we did it at 2 different times. For some reason, the SW didn't write 2 children & the I-171H said "approved for 1 child". In order to update the I-171H, I was told by USCIS in NY that I had to request a "Motion to Reopen" the I-600A. It cost $110 in 2005 & I had to attach the original I-171H plus provide an amended copy of the homestudy where the agency stated that we were approved for 2 children. The revised I-171H took a couple of weeks as I recall.

I don't understand why an agency would be able to dictate whether a couple can adopt a 2nd child at the same time as the first just b/c it's "their policy". Each case is different and if you're willing & able to love and nourish a 2nd child, why not do it? Good luck with this.

Damaris

[JillnChris]

have you thought about requesting twins?

[SRMiracle]

My agency and SW were open to two unrelated children so I am not sure what to tell you on that front. However we JUST sent in our paperwork to USCIS in Louisville last week to have the I600a/171 amended for two unrelated children. I was asked to submit an I824, and write on the bottom under action boxes that we wanted to have our I600a amended for two unrelated children of either gender and $200.00. Then, my homestudy agency was to forward the amendment. They said this should take a week or two in all. I am not sure if it would be different given that you need to switch agencies and homestudy providers.

Good luck! We decided about 3 weeks ago to go ahead and adopt two at once!

[myguatbabes]

During our first adoption via a horrible agency in 2004, DH and I decided to adopt another child with a different agency. We are now on our third adoption with this second agency and they had no problem with us adopting another child through a different agency and in fact told me what I had to do (specifically for my state) in order to be able to make the second adoption happen. If you want my agency info, just pm me! I don't understand why any agency wouldn't want you to adopt two at the same time!! As long as you meet criteria for USCIS and for your state, it shouldn't be a problem.

Good luck and many blessings!

[2xaround]

Thanks to all who have responded so far.

First of all I should say that other than the fact that our agency doesn't support the adoption of two related children at the same time, we really do like the agency and feel comfortable that we made a good choice in selecting them. Not only that, but we are just so close to getting our referral that we have to stay the course.

We had considered twins or siblings earlier in the process, but found out that almost all the fees doubled for the second child and the resources just were not available for us to complete the adoption of two at one time. We felt it was better to proceed with the adoption of one and hope that things would work out with Guatemala later or switch to another country for our second adoption. However, now that we know there is a good possibility of having enough money available for a second adoption from Guatemala before the US ratifies the Hague, I wonder if it's even going to be possible to make it happen. Again, the money won't be available until early this fall and who knows what will have happened by then. Maybe we'll be one of the lucky ones who gets through the process in 5 months and we can start the process all over again. LOL

Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else had ever gone through the process of completing two over-lapping adoptions with two different agencies or if it can even be done.

Thanks again everyone!

Debbie