[KabenabeMom]

Hi,

We are currently on the waitlist for adopting a little girl from S. Korea and are considering calling our agency switching our request to siblings, in the event twins are available. However, I have a few questions about twins.

Are twins considered "special needs" like sibling groups and are the fees essentially double? I know China has a waitlist for twins, but the requirements are alot tighter for those who request twins. We have friends that are adopting from China and are requesting twins.

Has anyone adopted twins from Korea? I know twins would be double the work, but double the blessing.
Any information would be helpful. We are praying and researching this decision and have a long wait to decide!
Thank You,
J

[sak9645]

With any country, adoptable infant and toddler twins are not considered "special needs" simply because they are twins. Some twins are born early and small, and may have medical issues as a result; if those medical issues are significant, those children would be considered special needs.

With some countries, sibling groups, other than infant/toddler twins, are sometimes listed as special needs, it is true. However, that is usually because at least one child in the group is of school age, or because there are three or more children. These situations make it harder to recruit adoptive families. It is NOT difficult to recruit families for infant/toddler twins. In fact, the number of prospective parents requesting twins is usually much, MUCH greater than the number of sets of twins available.

Because it is not hard to find families for healthy infant/toddler twins, you are not going to find any discounted orphanage or agency fees. Yes, it generally costs less to adopt twins than to adopt two babies at two different times, but that is mainly because you do only one homestudy, travel only once, etc. Discounted agency or orphanage fees usually apply when a child is hard to place due to age or special needs.

It is incorrect that China has much more strict requirements for people adopting twins. In general, China simply wants to see above average income, recognizing that it is costly to raise two kids of the same age, with two sets of braces, two sets of college tuitions, etc. falling at the same time.

Some AGENCIES have strict rules about who may adopt Chinese twins, however. They may want to see a particular income level or net worth, for example, and they may want twins to go to childless families. The main reason for these additional requirements is to prevent a situation in which too many people request twins. Twins are rare in any population, and the number of abandoned or relinquished Chinese twins is very small. So if agencies allowed everybody to request twins, there would be a lot of disappointment.

In fact, some families with a very ordinary income and net worth, and some families with children already in the home have been referred twins from China. Ultimately, whether you get a set of twins from China or not depends more on whether twins are available when your dossier is matched and on whether the China Center for Adoption Affairs in Beijing feels that you would be the best parents for the available twins.

China does not keep "waiting lists" of people wanting twins. Basically, when your group's dossiers is ready for matching, you may receive twins if a set is available. Otherwise, you will be referred one child.

You might want to ask your agency how many sets of Korean or Chinese twins it has placed in the past two or three years. I'll bet that it is a very low number, compared to the number of total placements it has made from those countries. This is not because few families want twins. On the contrary. It is because few twins are available for adoption.

In short, while you could change your homestudy and USCIS clearance to show that you can support twins, it may not be worth doing so. Only you can decide whether you want to incur the fees and risk a longer time frame, and then find that Korea, China, or any other country can refer you only one child.

Sharon

[bugfree]

I agree with the last poster. Twins are often not born full term and are might have other health problems...but they are not special needs just because they are twins. Also, as the last poster mentioned, the cost for adopting twins is almost double. Double the agency fees, immigration and other child specific fees, but the travel fees, homestudy fees and application fees are not double.

[Max'smom]

Twins are rare. Worldwide, the frequency of twins remains at about 1 in 333 births - if you take into account that there will be around 1,000 children adopted from Korea this year to the US (in 2007, the number was 939), you might expect that fewer than 3-4 families nationally may be able to adopt twins this year. In my agency, which is one of the largest in the country, I was told twins are very very rare.

If you are wondering if putting yourself down as open to twins would shorten your wait, as is the case with SN adoptions generally, I don't believe that has been the pattern in the rare few cases I have heard of.

[RockyMtMommy]

As previous posters stated, twins are rare and will not be considered SN just because they are twins. If you are open to parenting twins, in the event that a set do become available for adoption when your family comes up to be matched, you need to have your homestudy reflect that. So basically what I'm saying is you don't need to call the agency specifically and say "we want twins", but tell your social worker during your homestudy so that it can be in writing somewhere. That was one of the questions our social worker asked us at our first homestudy meeting and we hadn't thought about it, so we had to have a family discussion and let her know at the next meeting.
I know we are using the same agency- so just to give you an idea on the additional expenses- this is what I was told last Spring (though it may have been changed by now): Korea fee is doubled, local agency fee is 1.5 times. Can't remember if the travel fee was doubled or not.

[KabenabeMom]

Thank you all for your posts. You all gave me tremendous insight and I really appreciate it!
Thank You!
J