Our family was looking for a special needs toddler to adopt a few years ago. We applied for a beautiful set of twins that were nearly two years old, a boy and a girl. The twins were born three months premature and exposed to illegal drugs while in the uterus. We were told the children were very delayed and while they continued to make steady progress, it was slow and they still couldn’t walk or talk. They were involved in physical therapy and early intervention services and seeing an ophthalmologist regularly. They had also been in the same foster home since their release from the hospital, which lessened their chances for attachment problems.

We were very comfortable with the idea of adopting the twins based on the information given to us. After all, we had taken many children to speech therapy, physical therapy, and vision therapy and participated in Individual Education Plans (IEP). Therefore, when we found out we were the chosen family for them we were thrilled. I spoke to their foster mother at length, and still had no concerns about parenting them even though she couldn’t provide a video or recent photos.

I talked my husband into flying out to Oregon with me for a few days so we could meet the twins. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of waiting for ICPC and then flying to Oregon to meet the twins and immediately bring them home. I thought it would make their transition to a new family easier if they were able to meet with us several times. It would also give a chance to assess the children so we could have services all lined up, when they were able to come home with us.

At our own expense, we flew to Oregon two weeks after we found out we were chosen. We were so excited; we dropped our bags off at the hotel and hurried to meet the twins. They were so adorable and the boy was exactly as they had described him, the girl however, was not. When we entered the home, she was chewing on her foster father’s shoe, growling and rocking back and forth with her legs extended rigidly in front of her and her toes pointed straight out. As I crawled towards her on the floor, she stiffened even more, brought her hands up in front of her face, and watched her fingers open and close as she growled louder.

We visited the children three days in a row and we made a video tape that we brought home. We had our pediatrician review the tape as well as our adoption specialist and our entire family. We ended up withdrawing our application to adopt the children. However, the story doesn’t stop there. Nearly a year went by and the children still weren’t back on the adoption exchange, which frustrated me. During this same time, friends of mine were getting frustrated because they wanted to adopt more children and they had applied for many. They had previously adopted seven children and the two youngest boys, adopted privately, have Down’s syndrome. So they were already planning on lifetime parenting.

I finally talked them into sending their homestudy for the twins last year and the twins have been with them for eight months already. They only live 10 miles from us, so we get to visit them and they are doing very well. They can both walk and eat food now, they still don’t initiate conversation, but they are very happy.

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