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Thinking about adopting from Ukraine? Me too… I have been thinking about adopting a second child from Ukraine for a while now.
I have always wanted to parent 2 children. I think the sibling relationship is important. But things got in the way.. finances, work, special needs that turned out to be more special the I realized.
I posted why I adopted from Ukraine in 2000. And it did involve analyzing some statistics.
So once again I analyzed the number of children adopted by Americans by country. I took the adoption numbers from the US State Department.
I compared the percentage of increase in number of adoptions from 2006 to 2005, 2005 to 2004 and 2004 to 2003. I was looking for a trend… a positive growth or consistent adoption number.
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Ukraine isn’t on the positive growth list. For 2006, Ukrainian adoption was partly shutdown. The Ukrainian government decided to reorganize and move the adoption department.
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So for anyone who wants to explore the positive alternatives… You might want to check out the Vietnam adoption blog, African adoption blog, Ethiopia adoption blog, China adoption blog, Guatemala adoption blog.
And if you are just interested in exploring international adoption, you can always read Sandra’s blog. She touches on a little bit of everything. Sandra is a older mother, expat who is living in Seychelles and very opinionated. Image may be NSFW.
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Here are some basic facts.
Ukraine Adoptions Open or Closed?: Open
The Ukrainian government reorg is completed. Ukrainian adoptions are being processed in 2007. 40 to 50 families are getting a child’s referral per week. 40 new dossiers are being submitted a week.
It looks like it is going to be a good year…. Best guess (my personal crystal ball) is that Americans will adopt between 500 and 800 Ukrainian children this year.
Total Adoption Cost: $15,000 to $35,000
It will vary. You can adopt from Ukraine without an adoption agency (independently). Around 50% of Americans will adopt independently.
Your biggest costs will be your home study, I-600A immigration form, airline tickets, facilitator/translation fees.
Ethnicity of adopted child: Ukraine has a very homogeneous population. Based on a 2001 census 77.8% of the population is Ukrainian and 17.3% are Russian.
The remaining 4.9% are Belarusian, Moldovan, Crimean Tatar, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Romanian, Polish, Jewish and Other.
The African and Korean people of Ukraine fall into the Other category.
While Ukrainians and Russians can look very similar, they are a different ethnicity ..
And notice that the Roma (Rom, Gypsy) aren’t mentioned? Quite often they are not “officially” noticed. They can be the invisible people. Or they could have been placed under the Ukrainian, Moldovan, Romanian, etc.. categories.
Anyone considering adopting from Ukraine should think about Transracial adoption. While many folks adopt children with a pale skin tone. Children with different skin tones (Roma, Tartar, Black, Korean) are adopted.
Age and Gender of the Children: More boys then girls are available for adoption. It is a 60/40 split.
The average age is 4 years old.
If someone states you can adopt a healthy infant from Ukraine, run from them. It is possible to adopt children between 14 months and 4 years old. But it isn’t the common experience to adopt an infant.
Many children are adopted between 3 and 5 years of age.
Time in Ukraine During Adoption Journey: Families average 4 weeks in Ukraine. Some families will break the adoption trip into 2 trips.
The first trip takes 2 to 3 weeks to receive a referral and adopt the child. After the court hearing, there is a 10 waiting period. Then families can pick up their child.