Do you remember Jo from the Pomegrante blog? She's moved on to newer things, but I came across a BBC news article last week about her family. Click on the title above for a hot link to the article (or cut and paste this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6897567.stm ).
It turns out that her daughter is one of a twin, separated in China. There are not many details about their particular story, but it appears that this is not all that uncommon. Either the SWI cannot confirm that the children are twins, perhaps because they were left in different places at different times, or they wish so much to have the children placed, that they will split them. I mean, there really cannot be all that many families who are requesting to adopt twins, though there are definitely some who do.
The separating of twins, if it is intentional, raises huge ethical questions for me. Is it better to "quickly" place the children in different homes, sometimes in different countries, than to have them wait for an adopting family who wishes to raise two children at once? And what if these children have a medical need? I would hazard to guess that very few families who wish to adopt through the WCP actually think they *could* adopt twins, much alone actually ask for them. What if one child has a medical need and the other does not?
Our children already lose so much when they are adopted transculturally- the thought that some of them lose a sibling with whom they have shared the intimacy of their birth mother's body absolutely breaks my heart. There has to be a better way.
6 comments:
Unbelievable! I used to follow Pomegranate.
I couldn't get either link to work, but I will be back to try again later. I'll be interested to see how they found out so quickly since she just came home a few months ago! Anyway, I agree, there has to be a better way.
Wow - that's crazy! I used to read pomegranate all the time too. I can't believe twins are being separated when there are many couples (from what I understand) who are discouraged from requesting twins because they're told twins aren't very available.
Ya, I think that there would be many families that would welcome twins! Twice the blessing for us all!
Just came back and the link worked. What a story and how heartbreaking! Thanks very much for posting this.
we ponder this every day with our adopted twins.
There are so many 'more' questions that I have about birth mother and how different her birth experience was and how her abandonment of the girls has affected her.
I can't even imagine our girls without each other. They live to breathe the same air. They are connected in psyche and heart.
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