Yes, we came home with kids, but would never do it again

Hello to anyone who reads this. I truly hope you find it helpful in your quest to expand your family. My husband, Bryan, and I have been back from Ukraine for exactly one year now and finally decided to share our story so others may avoid our pitfalls. Here are the short answers:1. Did we return from Ukraine with 2 children, as we had hoped? Yes.

2. Who was our facilitator and would we use her again? PM ME - This response has been edited to adhere to this forums rules.

3. Would we adopt from Ukraine again? Absolutely not.Here is why...Who are we?I am an academic endocrinologist (MD) and my husband, Bryan, an exercise physiology PhD. We work closely together at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center writing grants and teaching, and I see patients as well. We have been together 8.5 years, laughing, getting stuck on top of 14K' mountains in snow, running marathons, etc. We get along extraordinarily well. Hard work, perseverance, and delayed gratification are part of our every day.Why did we decide to adopt? We decided to adopt because my husband and I feel strongly about giving the children who are already in the world a loving home. I spent a whole summer in high school working in an orphanage in Mexico. The kids were amazing! We wanted to do something good for them and for the world.Why did we choose Ukraine?We chose Ukraine because we were told that you could sort of choose your child(ren) once you arrived. The fear that we may not bond with our kids (like a blind date) was very strong, therefore any amount of choice in the matter was very motivating. We also wanted to adopt siblings, and had heard that many sibling pairs were available.How was the process in the U.S.?As many of you know, the stateside adoption process is a massive checklist of things that you simply check off. It is extensive and expensive, but otherwise fully manageable if you are organized. We found this part very straightforward: INS forms, fingerprinting here and there, letters from employers, doctors and friends, home study, including 24 hours of parenting classes, and alot of notarizations. It took us about a year at a casual pace. We submitted our dossier in September 2006. Then came the wait...Ukraine had been closed to adoption for nearly one year to "re-vamp the system", and had just re-opened. They remained open for 2 months and re-closed. New "rules" were announced almost daily, the killer or which was that if ANY of your documents were outside 6 mo. of issuance, they were "expired". Mind you, it took nearly 6 mo. to collect all the documents, so this was likely for many documents and caused a crazy race to get many things "re-issued", re-notarized, re-apostilled, and re-FedEx'd. Then wait and wait, watching more documents go outside the 6 mo. window. Statstically, it was highly unlikely for the whole dossier to ever be "up to date". We had also heard that each facilitator in Ukraine could only submit 2 dossiers per month, which meant, again, more waiting and less probability that an appointment at the National Adoption Center (NAC aka SDA) would be issued. Somehow, we got one.We travelled on March 12, 2007It was the beginning of 6 weeks of pure hell. For those of you who don't know what to expect in Ukraine, pick up a copy of the Lonely Planet's guidebook and you'll quickly find out what you are not missing. In their list of indispensable travel items, "flexibility" and "a sense of humor" wrap up the list. The culture is marked by passivity and apathy making the act of doing business in such a place mind-numbing and exasperatingWe made our appointment at the NAC. Despite paying extra for 2 original dossiers to be issues so that we may adopt 2 unrelated children (if no sibs were available), they refused to show us any unrelated kids. Actually, they told us (via Tatiana, the english-speaking interpreter) that it was "forbidden" to adopt unrelated children. They never told us why, but then again, little made sense. They showed us 3 sib pairs, none of whom were very young (many kids 6 years and older). There were no other choices and they refused to call the orphanage for additional health info. Supposedly in the past, one would page through whole photo albums of kids and the NAC would routinely call for additional info, of any kind. You have 1 hour to decide before they throw you out.We reluctantly chose one sib pair and travelled overnight to meet the little boy for 30 seconds. His mother had syphillis during her pregnancy, from which he had severe and permanent delays, although the latter was never disclosed by the NAC. God bless all the people who adopt special needs kids - it just wasn't what we had in mind.We returned to Kiev and sat in a cold, dirty apartment and waited. And waited. And waited. In Ukraine, when someone tells you to wait, it could be 5 minutes or 5 days, literally. In the meantime, a new "rule" came through the NAC that adoptive parents only got 2 referrals, then must leave and return in 6 mo if they desire a 3rd. We tried to appeal to the NAC, but they could not have cared less. They went through 3 directors of the NAC in the 6 weeks we were there, so everything was in chaos. We considered bribing someone, but on one knew who to bribe. Our translator allegedly knew who, but in the end, I think she was trying to extort us herself. We waited for 10 days for a 2nd appointment.They showed us 2 sib pairs, one of which has been shown to us at the 1st appointment. They refused to show us any young single kids, except for those with HIV, hepatitis, CP, etc. Again, reluctant, and this time very pessimistically, chose one of the sib pairs.We travelled to Kirovograd to meet them: 2y11m boy and 5y9m girl siblings. We spent nearly a week meeting with them before deciding to adopt them. A few things that made the trip continue to be unbearable:1. Our translator: our translator was a woman named Lena, and she was our lifeline to the whole process since we don't speak Ukrainian or Russian. Every day, there was "one more thing" (aka an expense) she forgot to tell us about. It became a running joke (although not so funny) between Bryan and I. The worst part came when she announced that we needed to cover all her travel, accomodations, food and phone cards for our time in Kirovograd. Between her expenses and the "extra" expenses, it ran us $10K over our worst case scenario budget. She was robbing us in broad daylight and there wasn't a thing we could do.2. Our facilitator: PM ME - This response has been edited to adhere to this forums rules.4. The place: Kirovograd is, well, a total hole. It is unsafe such that you better be behind some locked leather door when the sun goes down. If you rely on exercise to reset your brain chemistry, forget it, as you are apt to be chased and mugged. The food is generally bad, the weather bad, and people drink themselves silly night and day. The leading cause of death is cirrhosis from alcoholism, and I can see why, for if I lived there any longer would have likely joined them in pickling my liver.The upsideWe adopted our 2 kids: Anna (almost 7) and Theo, 4. They are amazing, healthy and bonded. Surprisingly, the year has been filled not with adoption issues for them, but learning to parent issues for us. Somewhere is this whole crazy process, I think one can lose track that the real race isn't surviving the adoption process, but the parenting one. Can I say that I wouldn't do it again knowing that things would work out this way? I don't know. We met alot of adoptive couples from all over the world while in Ukraine, all of whom had the same frustrations as us, and some who returned home without children. I feel somehow lucky that our horrible experience ended with a reward. Other people who have adopted from other countries have much more sane experiences, so I guess I would recommend adopting from somewhere else, for those committed to adoption.Thanks for reading this. Good luck.