When you’re considering adoption, you’re going to spend a significant amount of time deciding what kind of child is a good match for your family. Are you looking to adopt a child from birth, or do you want to adopt an older child? Do you want to adopt locally, or do you want to do an international adoption?
One of the things that you might consider is adopting twins. You might wonder how adopting twins differs from adopting only one child or adopting a sibling group of diverse ages. Here’s how adopting twins is different than a single-child adoption:
The court must approve the adoption for both children
The court must consider the best interests of the child when they decide whether to approve an adoption. That means that the court must look at the best interests of each child separately. You can expect the court to look at the big picture, but they’re also going to look at each child as an individual. You must show the court why it’s best for each twin and for the family as a whole to proceed with the adoption.
Even though the children may be twins, the best interests of the child standard is unique to the individual child. The court looks at the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed adoptive placement against each child’s individual circumstances. If one of the children has special needs, the court takes their needs into account. It’s important to prepare your materials for the court while keeping in mind that the court looks at the situation both separately for each child and together as a family unit.
There may be added costs associated with adopting twins
When you adopt twins, be prepared that there may be extra costs involved. You’ve essentially got to prepare two court cases. That means preparing many of the documents and paying fees twice. You may need to pay filing fees twice. There may be additional attorney fees associated with preparing two sets of documents. When you make the decision to adopt twins, you should be prepared for the extra costs that may be associated with the adoption process.
Of course, along with added expenses, you may qualify to take advantage of resources that may be available to help. You may use the federal income tax credit for adoption in order to offset many of your direct expenses from your tax liability. You may qualify for state reimbursement of expenses associated with adoption. You may even qualify to receive a monthly stipend from the time the adoption is complete until the children reach the age of 18. The standards for whether you qualify to take advantage of these credits and assistance programs are the same in twin adoptions as they are in all other cases where parents adopt more than one child at the same time.
What’s the cost to adopt twins?
Even though you can expect extra costs associated with adopting twins, your costs aren’t necessarily going to double. Your caseworkers can likely work efficiently in order to combine the paperwork as much as possible. If you pay confinement expenses for the expectant mother, these expenses may increase slightly for medical care, but they’re probably not going to completely double because there’s a second child. When you take steps to adopt twins, you can expect some increased costs. However, your costs aren’t necessarily going to be double what they might be to adopt a single child.
Expect extra scrutiny about your finances
When you adopt twins, you must show that your finances are sound. You need to show that you can pay to take care of two children instead of just one. When you go forward with a twin adoption, you can expect extra attention to the area of your finances. The court wants to know that if it approves the adoption, the children are going to be cared for with sufficient resources.
Consider each stage in the process
As you prepare to adopt twins, it’s important to consider every stage in the process that you need to complete. For example, you must complete a parental consent for both children. The court must review a home study for each child. It’s important not to assume that you can double up or put the paperwork together. Instead, each child must have a full and complete adoption process.
Is it difficult to adopt twins?
Only about three in every hundred births in the United States is a twin. That means a very small percent of children waiting for adoptions are twins. If you want to adopt twins, you must be prepared for the fact that you may have a long wait to find an adoptive match. You should consider how important a match with twins is for you as you consider all of your “wants” and “musts” during the adoption process.
Creating twins through adoption
Some families create twins in a family through adoption. You might adopt a child who is close in age to a child that’s already in your family. Alternatively, you might adopt two children from different biological parents who are the same age. Parents can use adoption in order to create virtual twins by adoption.
There’s a lot to think about if you want to go this route. There are pros and cons to creating twins through adoption, and you should think through whether twinning through adoption is in the best interests of everyone involved. You need to show your home study caseworker that the adoption is in the best interests of the entire family, so it’s important to have these discussions before you begin the home study process.
Do twins have to be adopted together?
While twins don’t always have to be adopted together, it’s almost always in the best interests of the children to stay together as a sibling group. The courts believe that it’s generally in the best interests of the children to have the same adoptive placement and maintain family ties. Just like other sibling groups, the courts always hope and look for ways to keep twins together in adoption.
What do I need to know about adopting twins?
When you adopt twins, many aspects of the process are the same as they are when you adopt a single child. However, you must prepare two sets of paperwork because the court must approve the adoption for each individual child. You can expect a longer wait to find an adoptive match than if you’re looking to adopt a single child. Bobby Mills can help ensure that you take the proper steps to complete your twin adoption as efficiently as possible.