OMG! This twin thing on BBC 1 is killing me.

[HeadFairy]

Watching those twin Chinese girls reunited has made me cry!

Currently pg with identical twins. Watching this in conjunction with pg hormones has turned me into blubbering mess! The thought of my 2 being raised apart after being so near to each other for the past 27 weeks..... Oh no, started blubbering again!!
It is a wee bit freaky seeing so many people who look exactly the same as the person standing next to them! Guess I'll have to get used to it though!
Interesting that identical twins themselves find looking at other identical twins weird!

headfairy the adoption agency didn;t know there were identicla twins, matching of children to parents is done by the CHinese government not by an adoption agency and the govt rep denied they were twins.

Anyone who thinks they could give up their child after 6 months to someone they don't know on the other side of the world is barking mad. I couldn;t have been separated from DS with a crowbar at 6 months. I doubt they allowed themselves to think about it being the best for the girls at some point in the future.

I really felt for the mothers though as it was obviously very upsetting for them also. At least it is easier to keep in touch now rather than what would have happened years ago with snail mail. And at least they didn't have to wait 40 plus years like the other twins who were separated.

My two aren't identical technically although they are very alike, I'm hoping they will appreciate being a twin more at some point!

Kewumber - I'm not sure where 6 months comes into it. They suspected the girls were twins on the day after they arrived to adopt them. They did DNA tests as soon as they got home.

I don't for one minute think it would be anything other than heartbreaking to give up a child you have longed for, even at that early stage, but it's what being a parent is all about - putting your child's interests before your own.

But doesn't the adoption process involve lots of contact with the child before the actual adoption itself is formalised? It's not like just going through an academic process of paperwork before collecting your child, I don't think.

What a difficult situation for them all, I'm just glad all the parents are so sensitive to the needs of the sisters. And yes, I was in tears at their reunion and parting

Very interesting programme all round, I thought.

I have to say I agree with nigglewiggle, I actually came on MN to post about it in AIBU, but saw this thread first. It is a terrible situation to be placed in but the fact remains that both sets of parents found out before they signed the papers that it was highly likely the girls were sisters. I was horrified that they thought it was OK to continue in the circumstances.

I don't think either of them should have gone through with the adoption until everything was clarified. Or one set of parents should have adopted both.I longed for a child till I had my DS via IVF so i know how hard it can be, and to have to give up on that at the very point you think your dream is coming true must be a terrible thing. But personally I couldn't live with the guilt that I had separated a family, never mind twins.

What if those twins find out that their adoptive parents knew they may have been twins & still separated them? They might really resent that.

I don't think any parent would give away their baby because they might have a better life elsewhere.

Unless their own circumstances were particularly difficult, obviously - but it seems very unlikely to be that a happy stable family would give up a loved and wanted baby.

They didn't know for sure they were twins!

They were lied to! They asked the agency and were told no.

What were they supposed to do, leave them there?

The adoptions were done, they'd gone back to finish paperwork for the girls' visas and just happened to run into each other.

At least the girls have two families who wanted to a) know the truth (DNA tests aren't cheap) b) are doing the best they can about a bad situation they did not create.

I can't believe people are suggesting the two adoptive families are in the wrong here and exonerating the orphanage who split them up in the first place!

Did anyone else notice how similar their adoptive mothers looked to each other especially their profiles. I though that was weird in itself.

no cyteen - in china the adoption happens very quickly (after years preparing/being assessed beforehand) - you have sole care of the child virtually instantly you arrive and paperwork is processed within a few days.

I think they were waiting for visas to be issued.

They would not have been able to decide on their own to give away one of the chidlren - that child would have no right to enter the country of the new parent, they would not have been assessed by social services about whether they had the support/finaces etc for twins and no paqperwork to get a visa for the second child.

What would have happened is that the child (or both childrne) would have gone back into the system to be adopted by someone else who was approved for twins - assuming they weren't split up again and officals were a bit smarter and had both adoptions put through different batches...

"It's not like just going through an academic process of paperwork before collecting your child, I don't think" - yes in CHina it is.

Sometimes its controversially called kidnap adoption. Its the Chinese system - parents have no choice.

So under the Chinese system you are assessed and prepared without meeting your proposed adoptee, and the first time you meet them is when you go and pick them up? That's an eye-opener.

"Kewumber - I'm not sure where 6 months comes into it." that was my guess - they didn;t say (I think) that they had the DNA tests done immediately they said - "after a few months". Prior to that they had been categorically told the girls were NOT twins.

Many childrne would have a better life if given up by their parents - they still wouldn't voluntarily give up their child. Do you really think adoptive parents fell so differently?

Its not that I'm disputing that the girls should have been adopted togteher, I just find it insane that anyone really beleives that a parent would voluntarily give their child up because they would have a better life (except in life or death situations). Adoptions would be a damn site more common in this country if parents selflessly gave up childrne at birth to people who were more caring, more empathetic, more intelligent, ricner etc so that their child might have a better life.

Even after 1 day with your baby - would you have given them away?

you are matched by a chinese official and sent some photos and a brief sumamry of medical history and can refuse the match but most people don;t unless the child is not within what they were approved for, for example older or male (if only approved for a girl)

I should add that its only China that I know of who has this system. Maybe its because of the sheer volume of adoptions they have to get through. But its very tough on the child.

Did you not notice how the babies were cryig in the home video? That because they'd just been handed over to complete strangers!

i was on booing my head off watching this last night. it was obvious they were identical twins, dna tests did not have to prove that and really the parents were being selfish to spilt them and live so far apart from each other.

i was shouting "no" at the beginning, one of them should have adopted both.

but then i guess they had waited so long and travelled so far to collect these little girls that they would just not have been able to give them up so soon. but neither were reallt thinking about what was best for those little girls. it could have been so different.

seeing them together just showed the power of identical twins, with 100% dna you could see this unspoken love between them.

the ending was all too much for me, with one arm around each others waist and another around their parents their little hearts were broken. torn between their parenrs and their soul mate the emotions they must have been going through only an identical twin could imagine.

even seeing each other once a year would not be good enough, those parents need to accept by spilting them up at birth they should have made a vow to keep them close. I can not believe 6 was the earliest they met.

I reckon they will have alot of anger towards their parents when older. Both parents seemed lovely and I cannot say which has a better life. Such a hard situation.

I told my friend about it today and had to hold the tears back, it really disturbed me.

'it was obvious they were identical twins, dna tests did not have to prove that and really the parents were being selfish to spilt them and live so far apart from each other.

i was shouting "no" at the beginning, one of them should have adopted both.'

the system doesn't work like that in China.

the adoptions were complete and they had gone to finish off the paperwork for the visas each child needed to leave.

i still don't get all this ire directed at these poor parents, and no, it's not obvious any two people are identical twins without a DNA test or prior knowledge that they are, rather than at the officials who split them up and then lied to the adoptive parents when they chanced to run into each other and query it.

It was very upsetting and there are no easy answers. I wondered why the Norwegian couple adopted ther daughter as they already had children. Presumably to give an abandoned child a home?

No mention seemed to be made of their birth mother and the trauma she must have felt. I know that wasn't the point of the programme but those girls will have to deal with that as well when they're older ( ie the whole 'Chinese heritage / who were our biological parents / why were we given up? etc).

The Chinese authorities, presumably, thought they could just share them round, like commodities.

But at least they are loved and cared for and will keep in touch - and have been told the truth.

'I wondered why the Norwegian couple adopted ther daughter as they already had children.'

Maybe they wanted more? Why on Earth shouldn't they have adopted although they already had children?

If these two couples were reallly selfish and awful the way people are making out here, don't you think they would have just gone their separate ways and not even bothered themselves to find out the truth, much less made a pact (and lived up to it) to travel thousands of miles as much as they can so the sisters know each other and grow up as together as possible?

I had no idea people harboured so much ill-will towards adoptive couples. How startling.

shall I go through again how its not that easy to give a child that is legally your's away to strangers in a foreign country who have no paperwork for that child and no legal status.

The only alernatively to the paretns taking the children home at that point was leaving them in china as a ward of court (again). The "lucky" parents would then have to be approved in their home country again, persuade the Chinese authorities to wait for this to happen and not have the child adopted by another unknown family in the meantime and persuade them to deal with their case outside of the normal matching process. The fact that the authorities lied about the girls being twins does not make me think they would have been amenable to this.

I doubt very much whether the relinquishing parents would have been accepted back onto the China programme having "abandoned" their first legal child.

Their only choices were take the children with them or leave them behind. There would have been no fairytale ideal situation of both girls being re-adopted together by one those particular parents at that particular time.

Rightly or wrongly, with no proof and an outright denial of twinship the parents chose to take their children home. I think to call tehm selfish shows a marked lack of empathy.

I guess in that situation you would have left them in the care of the state that caused the problem in the first place .

I don;t doubt that the adoptive paretns are wracked with guilt and are devastated by the situation to a much greater degree than the armchairs critics of here. It is happening to their children. Maybe they regret their decision now, but I personally don;t see what they could have done that would have worked out better.

Personally I would have got the girls together before now, but I've no idea why they decided not to.

Parping myself off this - too close to the bone for me.

expatinscotland - i think its terrible they waited 6 years to reunite them.

The Americans were loaded, did you see their house?

They could have reunited them earlier.

"I had no idea people harboured so much ill-will towards adoptive couples. How startling." This sentence is rubbish and nobody is saying that - when did we say that?

I am talking just about these two couples, of course they are no bad. They look like great parents who are giving them great lives, shame none of their heritage seemed to be included in this upbringing.

But they know they have separated identical twins, when the dna test revealed this on their return. they had each others details, something could have been done at that time in the girls best interests. Even if it meant one of them moving.

Of course its an awful situation for anyone to be in, but financially it looked possible.

The least they should have done was keep them connected from birth and met every eyar, why did they wait until six? Just for a documentary?

Expat - welcome to my world!

Adoption in the UK is not viewed in the same way as it is in the US it is very much seen as a last resort and people who adopt who have birth children are odd. Often have to go through the mill with social worker who are suspicious of their motives. Adoption from overseas is considered to be middle class couple buying young babies and adoption in the UK is very worthy but you are likely to be taking on a future axe murderer.

Campion - birth parent issues were not addressed becasue it was a programme about twins not adoption. Rest assured their paretns will be trained to talk to their child about issues surrounding the adoption, abandonment, race and identity etc. No-one knows how the birth mother felt in this case (although sometimes it is in domestic adoptions) and it isn't generally conmsidered appropriate to speculate about it with outsiders although parents will discuss it with their children when its appropriate.

Kewcumber - of course I agree.

It was just so horrible seeing them both standing in the queue, the two little girls looking at each other and knowing they were about to be separated for ever to meet when they are six.

Its just sad they were not meeting reg since then.

Oh I cried my eyes out - I have (potentially) been in the parents position none of you have. It would be an aop[tive parents worst nightmare.

It is notable how many people have called the adoptive parents selfish.

No one has suggested the birth parents were selfish for relinquishing them
No-one has suggested that the orpanange was aappalling not to have warned either parents before the adoptions went through.
No-one has suggested the officials were appalling for matching the children separately.

Only the adoptive parents.

And its not limited to tragic situations like this. I have been called selfish for adopting my son, so perhaps I'm particularly sensitive to it.