[shnoogiepoo]

1st of all.

Can you adopt independantly like in Ukraine?

2nd. I understand there is a one month wait from the time you identify child to going to court and taking them home? How much time did you sepnd over there?

3rd. Did anyone spend that time doing volunteer work helping out in the orphanage(s) and or bonding with your child?

4th. How supportive was the Russian government on allowing you to volunteer in the orphanages

5th How many of you learned to speak Russian before going?

and last. Can you all give me an idea of (ballpark) what you spent to adopt and what age from Russia. you can PM me if you don't want to broadcast it or you can generalize it like between 15 and 20k etc if you don't want to be to specific. I understand that it really personal.

[mdmom]

Can you adopt independantly like in Ukraine? I'm not sure either; I know you used to be able to, but that was prior to the agency accreditation process.

2nd. How much time did you sepnd over there? We spent 10 days (this was 2 years ago.) This time (we are waiting to go for our second child) we've been told to expect a week for the first trip and 10 days (or so) for the second trip. There are some regions that require a 10 day waiting period; our judge waived this.

3rd. Did anyone spend that time doing volunteer work helping out in the orphanage(s) and or bonding with your child? For our first adoption trip (10 days) we spent roughly 5 days visiting/bonding with our son prior to the court hearing. I'm not certain that the orphanages would have wanted us to 'volunteer' our time while visiting them. We had limited access to the other rooms in the orphanage (than the ones our son was in) and didn't really have any time there that was not accounted for doing paperwork, etc.

5th How many of you learned to speak Russian before going?
We learned minimal Russian, enough to find the bathroom, order some food and say please, thank you etc. We had a translator with us almost all the time. And our son was 9 months old so he wasn't speaking Russian or needing to communicate with us other than crying, etc.

and last. Can you all give me an idea of (ballpark) what you spent to adopt and what age from Russia. Our son was 9 months at placement and our adoption including travel cost under $25.

Good luck

[shnoogiepoo]

I thought that you had to make 2 trips to the russia for an adoption? I was wondering about the time in between those two trips???

[AshleyIL]

We adopted our son last year from the Sverdolsk Region of Russia. We made 2 trips and the length of time inbetween trips was about a month. There was a required number of visits to see our son that we had to make before our court hearing. We did not do any volunteer work and did not learn much Russian. We had a translator.

Ashley

[shnoogiepoo]

That's the time I'm talking about, between trips. Id be very interested in spending the time in country doing something worth while like helping out in the orphanages. It would cost no more to spend that month there than it would to fly back and forth so I was wondering if anyone had done it, and if so what the country officials thought of it? if they encourage it or discourage it?

[lchurch]

1. Yes, there are people that are adopting independently. There has been lots of discussion recently on the Russian Adoption Yahoo Group. There are possibly some changes happening. I'm using an agency so I didn't pay much attention.
2. I think the timing depends somewhat on the region. For Ekaterinburg, for trip #1 we do not expect to be gone more than 7-10 days. The second trip will be approx 2 months later. The delay is so that Russia can get all their paperwork together, set a court date, the judge review our documents and hopefully not request any more! Ekat is a busy region for adoptions so it takes a while to get the court date. For the second trip we will go a couple days before court and see the kids, then court, then the 10 day wait before we get the kids and their new documents. The 10 day wait is waived in some regions/by some judges. We will be able to see the children during the 10 days to help in the bonding before we take them home. Then of course off to Moscow for the US Embassy paperwork and home.

[Sharona H]

1) independent - yes you can

2) the wait between trip 1 and 2 varies completely by region, the invidual judges schedule, holidays, the time to translate court documents, etc.... could be 1 week, could be 3 months - honestly. Our was recently 5 weeks and I think you're right that about 1 month is average... but definitely find out what the region you plan to go to is averaging. We were in Russia 8 days for trip #1, home for 5 weeks, then back for 12 days for trip #2, so if we'd have opted to stay in country between trips, it wold have been 55 days in Russia.

3 & 4) We didn't spend time there between trips. Like everything else, I would assume this option would completely vary between regions and even individual orphanages. One might welcome you there for lots of bonding time, another might find a foreigner there every day as someone getting in the way of their efficient process. Even the regions that don't waive the 10 day wait, often only allow a 1-2 hour/day visit because they don't want to message up the schedule or make things more difficult for the orphanage workers. If using an agency, you might be able to find out what regions/orphanages might have children available for you, and that they also know would be open to this kind of arrangement and have "quick" court dates, so your only there 1 month versus 2 or 3.

5) We learned Russian to speak to our children (2 and 3 year old siblings)... lots of basic nouns and things like time to eat, I love you, sit down please, etc... it has helped tremendously. We only learned very basic conversational Russian (Pleased to meet you, My name is, etc...) and this was plenty as we had an agency representative who helped us buy our airfare, in court, getting passport photos, etc. If I was going independent, I think I would choose to learn a lot more Russian.

6) the costs will really vary depending on if you're adopting a waiting child, a baby, an older child, etc. We adopted a 2 and 3 year old sibling pair. The fees we paid to the agency for their service, their overseas staff service, and a $1,000 orphanaage donation totaled $23,000. When adding the additional costs, it's more like $43,000 to adopt our two children . . .(hotel costs of approximatley $2,000, air and trainfare around $8,500 total, $3,000 for our homestudy due to our states crazy extra paperwork requirements, $560 to the federal government (INS), $500+ to our state to appostile our documents, etc, etc....

We looked into other agencies, some were on the lines of $10 to #12,000 more. You will find a huge variation. If you do decide to consider agencies, don't forget to compare total cost (i.e. some pay your translators overseas, drivers, etc. in their fee, for others this is an extra charge you must pay... some require you to pay a high fee to stay at their chosen homestay other allow you to choose your accomodations and cost).

Good luck! We have been home for 3 weeks, and it was well worth it.

[Sharona H]

Forgot to add... re: cost... we expect to collect back $20,000 in federal adoption credit ($10,000 x 2) over the next 5 years, which will bring our next adoption expense to around $23,000.

Not cheap, but what we used to justify it was other possibly costs to have a family in a reasonable time frame (adopting through our state is a 2 1/2 year process if you want a child under 6 thanks to red tape and bureaucracy). . . was comparing it to our other options.

$23,000 could have "almost" bought us two attempts at InVitro Fertilization. We could have had two children (or even more out of those attempts), but it was more likely we'd end up with 0 children and no money to then pursue adoption. Not that we had $23,000 (and certainly not $43,000) sitting around... but you get the point.

Good luck... I know we considered independent due to the expense (I'm am very thrify, known as a miser.... I do my own tax work, handle the legal and financial work for our business, etc... and I still felt independent adoption was too daunting a task to take on... maybe for a second adoption now that we understand the process, laws, rules, etc. better).

[shnoogiepoo]

Sharon your information was awesome. Thank you for sharing.

[AshleyIL]

I forgot to say the cost of our adoption. It was about 35,000, but we did spend a few days in Moscow on our first trip and our second trip was almost a month so I am sure it could be cheaper. Our experience in the Sverdolsk region, specifically Ekinteringburg, was very positive and our referal time was very fast, This was last year. To see pictures of my son go to http://photos.yahoo.com/toylady1909

Ashley

[kfin66]

OMG Ashley!!! He's SOO handsome!
Congrats~
Kerry

[AshleyIL]

Thanks Kerry! We are truly blessed!
Ashley

Thank you God!

[wow2003]

My friend have adopt from Russia. She did everithing herself. Call her if you have a question: (781) 341-9872