[Paytonsmom]

Hello. I'm new here. I've done research on China up til now. I talked with the director at our local adoption agency today and he explained the process in China and in the Ukraine. I have to admit to being non-worldly and thought that Ukraine was In Russia.

So I am wondering a few things... Do they speak the same language? The director of the agency made it sound like it would be less time to get a healthy little girl between 2-3 (with the new program Ukraine is putting in place) and China's program is quite lengthy right now. I wouldn't necessarily be in such a "rush" if it wasn't for the fact that my dd is going to be 5 in Oct, and we'd like to have a little sister for her a few years younger, w/out the age gap being too big.

I'd like to hear anyone's experiences with adopting from Ukraine/what the culture is like.

[jmchowat]

First of all, you should join the Adoption from Ukraine yahoo board and check out the Ukraine section of the chat room on FRUA (www.frua.org). These sites will give you a lot of information. In a nutshell, Ukraine has not accepted new applications for several months and the adoption center in Kiev (the only place where you can get information on available children) has undergone extensive resrtructuring. They are hoping to start seeing families that have accepted dossiers in September, but are not expecting to accept dossiers until 2007. At that time, there will be a significant number of families filing applications. On top of all of that, at the moment there is a moratorium on American families such that Ukraine will only consider adoption of children over 10, special needs or siblings of previously adopted children.

So, if your agency is telling you that Ukraine will be quicker than China, they are probably not correct (although I have no idea how long the wait in China is). Also, the option of getting a 2 to 3 year old right now is not even possible. As anyone will tell you, it is extremely hard to get a healthy girl under 3 in Ukraine (although we got a 21 month old this year).

Ukraine was in the USSR, but is now completely separate from Russia. As a generalization, people speak Ukrainian on the western side of the country and Russian on the eastern side.

We have three adopted children from UKraine, we adopted in 2001 and again in 2005/2006. Our blog url is spaces.msn.com/BenandMaggie. You can also visit http://americanexpat.blog-city.com for links to the blogs of several families that have adopted from UKraine recently

[waxhawfamily]

We adopted from Russia during the Russian restructure. When we started the process, we were told it took 9 months. Because we were caught in a complete shutdown then a slow restart, it took us 18 months. The average, from what I am seeing now, is around 12 months. The Ukraine adoptions are going through now, what I went through with Russia 2 years ago.

The good news with Russia now is that they have their restructure behind them and are moving adoptions forward. The down sides to Russia are:
* you can't get a child under 10 months (when it used to be 6 months)
* there is a longer wait for girls than boys (although I have heard that it isn't always too much longer)
* it is difficult to adopt more than one child at a time - if you're going for 2 or more
* you have to make two trips to Russia, although your total time in country is less than in Ukraine. The first trip is about 1 week and the second trip is 10 - 15 days normally. I think you can end up spending over a month straight in Ukraine, but you only have the flight expenses once.

We are VERY happy with our experience in Russia!!! We brought home a 26 month old boy last June. He is such a joy.

[Amysue1112]

Hi Payton'smom....
We just adopted our daughter from Russia (home 2 months) and are not going to adopt again anytime soon, but will choose another country next time.
Russia is way too unstable..even now. Last year is was a LONGGG re-accreditation problem...this year, they made a new rule..NGO (non-govt organization)..then the agency has to get re-accreditated (only lasts 1 yr). Only 2 agency's have gotten NGO and from what I have been told, the MOE who handles re-accreditation is not even accepting applications at this time for re-accred.
So it is sad to say, but Russia is constantly changing rules/laws and I would not say they are anywhere near "stable" It took us almost 2 years...which would not have been bad except that there were many times that we were not sure we would EVER bring a child home.
I don't know much about CHina, but i know it is much more stable...I think it usually takes a 18 months, but at least it is stable from what I have been told. I would check out their forum.

Take care!
Amy

[Max'smom]

Hi Payton'smom,
If you are intending on a girl in the age range you mentioned, Ukraine really is not for you! I have lived on and off in Ukraine for the past 10 years and was very close to adopting through Ukraine but there were too many uncertainties. I want to second everything that Ben and Maggie's Mom said above, and reiterate in particular the point she made that Ukraine is not planning on giving referrals to Americans except for kids who are special needs, ages 10 and up or sibs of children adopted previously. I would be *very very very* wary of any agency that makes it sound like you would have a faster referral of a healthy girl in the 2-3 year range in Ukraine than in China. Even before Ukraine made those changes associated with restructuring and getting rid of all the corrupt officials who were involved in foreign adoptions before, there were a lot of prospective adoptive parents (PAPs) going to Ukraine with similiar expectation to yours and finding that there were not enough kids who were healthy in that range to go around, let alone young girls (who are preferred by most PAPs).Some people were lucky and had a facilitator with inside connections, but others left the country without adopting or had to wait a long while and look for a child who was much older, or less healthy, or a boy. I looked at statistics on adoption from one of the largest independent facilitators and it was clear that the average age of kids adopted from Ukraine was increasing for the last 5 years and fewer people overall were able to find healthy girls in the 2-3 years range.Of course, there were exceptions, but kids in that age range were not offered even to my friends back in Ukraine who live there, know the Ukrainian language and the system, and have residence papers, and are Canadian and not US citizens (so are not affected by the moratorium).
Good luck!
MM