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Hi everyone !
I need this info to help a friend who is there to adopt. Does anyone know if people have to pay ''extras'' to have healthy children ? They want a child under 5 years old boy or girl.
They just present them sick children and serious sickness. So if anyone knows and can help that would be appreciated. They work with an agency.
Thank you all for your help
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i believe i saw that ukraine will not even accept applications from people asking for healthy children under 6. i believe you have to specify an age bracket, and i believe the youngest bracket you can request is 1-5. i am certain i read there are so very few children in this age bracket that are healthy or with minor/correctable needs, that chances are they wouldn't even accept your dossier if you submitted it requesting such a thing.
but the best bet, for the best answer, is to contact an agency and see what they say.
p.s.....i have not "heard" of any extras for a healthy child, i was under the impression there really just weren't any/many. i HAVE read MANY stories about how families get presented 3 very ill children and end up coming home with no children at all.
This is taken directly from the State Department website (I have added the bold):
According to a resolution that came into effect on December 1, 2008, the Ukrainian Adoption Authority, the SDAPRC, will now have the right to refuse to register your dossier if, at the time of the dossiers submission to the SDAPRC, the central database of Ukrainian children available for intercountry adoptions will not contain any children complying with the recommendation in your home study. Given the statistics published by the SDAPRC and available on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv at: [url=http://kyiv.usembassy.gov/amcit_adoptions_notice_0119_eng.html]U.S. Embassy Kyiv - Visa Services[/url], there are currently no healthy children (or children with minor, correctable health problems) under three and very few under six years old. Therefore, if you are recommended for a healthy child or a child with minor/correctable health problems under six years of age, the SDAPRC is very likely to refuse even to accept and register your dossier
Are you saying that they are in Ukraine now and that their agency let them travel thinking that young, healthy children were available for adoption?
I think mommytoEli is right on. My parents adopted 2 physically healthy children from Ukraine (have emotional special needs however) last year, but they are definitely older children at 15 and 16. I do not think it possible at all for them to adopt a healthy child under 5. If they were led to believe that, it is definitely not the truth.
I just chat with here few minutes ago. You are right. When she applied (august 2008) there was no such law. But the agency I think never told them after...
I told her about getting an older kid and she told me she will probably go with it. Because all the small one have Aids, HIV positive, mental hill.
So thanks for your kick response :) I was adopted myself in Quebec 42 years ago and I think that people who adopt are really good people (sorry translation i'm french !)
Good luck to everyone who wants to adopt :)
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I think that your friend is getting some bad advice.
First off, all Ukrainian adoptions are considered "independent" because the Ukrainian government opposes the use of agencies. As an example, an American agency cannot give referrals or represent an American family at the National Adoption Center. If a person uses an American agency, all it can do is help him/her with information, paperwork, and identification of in-country facilitators. Any agency that promises a referral is not being truthful.
Second, the Ukrainian government has informed the U.S. State Department that it has very few healthy children under age 6 available for adoption, and that most of these children go to domestic families. The Ukrainian government has said that it will not accept a dossier from a family requesting a healthy child under age 6. There is no way to get into a program with higher fees and adopt a healthy youngster; such children are simply not available.
Third, there is no guarantee that a person will find a child he/she can parent, when he/she adopts from Ukraine. This is one of the negative features of Ukrainian adoption. The prospective parents have to submit a dossier and wait to be invited to come to Ukraine to choose a child.
When the prospective parents get to Ukraine, they must first go to a government office, where they are shown notebooks with information about the adoptable children. Because of Ukraine's stated intent to advocate for hard-to-place children, the people at the National Adoption Center will often, initially, show them only notebooks containing information about children with very serious special needs. While some families have been able to persuade the authorities to show them books of children with somewhat less severe special needs, others have not and have come home without even meeting any children.
If the prospective parents do see information on some children that they think they might be able to parent, they notify the authorities, who then arrange for them to travel to meet those children in whatever orphanages they are located. When they meet a child, they are given some information, and then pressured to make a decision very quickly -- possibly overnight. They may not have adequate time to review information with an American specialist in adoption medicine, or to research educational and therapeutic resources that might be available in their home communities, to assist them in meeting a given child's needs.
If the prospective parents do not feel comfortable adopting the children they chose to visit, they will NOT be shown other children in the same orphanage. They will usually have to return to the National Adoption Center to identify other children. In some cases, they will not even have this option, but will be told to go home and wait for another invitation. Some parents become so discouraged that they never go back.
Ukrainian adoption is not a good choice for families who are not open to school aged children or to children with fairly significant disabilities. It is also not a good choice for people who want a lot of hand-holding from a reputable agency and who want to evaluate a referral in the comfort of their homes, before spending money on travel.
Some people have managed to adopt wonderful children from Ukraine. But these are usually people who are committed to adopting school aged and/or special needs children, who have adopted before and are comfortable with all the uncertainties, and/or who know the country and its language and don't have to rely on an interpreter who may or may not know medical terminology and understand the importance of things that an orphanage director or doctor may be saying about a given child.
Sharon
We just returned from Kiev with no child. The situation is grim, just horrible. We sought a healthy younger child, but older was okay if they seemed stable. We saw just referral after referral of special needs children, "mental retardation," "spina bifada," "FAS," etc. We asked if we could see more. She said, "they are all like this, or worse." In some way, it was so overwhelming, it was almost insulting. The one or two referrals we saw that were considered "healthy" still have serious issues or great potential for life long problems and high risks (they are in special needs orphanages and have issues like small head, etc.). And then, we are not even talking about the psychological and social problems of being institutionalized for so long. I told our US facilitator time and time again that we couldn't handle a special needs child, and she kept telling me they are most all fine, the government makes up these illnesses so the kids can come up for adoption quicker, these illnesses are not that serious. She was not telling me the truth, and neither was the translator and several others who are in this game. After our SDA meeting, we were so shocked and saddened and later angry. We had spent so much money just to get to that point. Other countries mislead too, not just Ukraine. THere is no consumer protection or fraud laws in place watching these agencies and facilitators. They trick you to get you to fly to Ukraine, spend all this money, and then go for the emotional "sale" once they know you are too deep into the game. THey try to get you to take something you don't want, and many do. IT is horrible and feels like hell. My advice, stay away from Ukraine unless you know for sure you want to deal with high risks and life-long issues. This trickery and deceit is a terrible thing to inflict on good-hearted trustful foreigners seeking to adopt.
BonnieJ,
I am sorry that you feel like you spent a lot of money under false pretenses. However, in this case, it sounds like it was your facilitator or agency that misled you - Ukraine has for a number of years put out clear signals that there were virtually no healthy young children eligible for international adoption. I am sorry your facilitator/agency misled you and I cannot imagine how pained and angry you must be.
We've been there 2.5 years ago and know how you feel. I was angry, upset, empty, taken advantage of, etc and yes, we were asked for "extras" for a healthy referral that went to someone else that said yes to the "extras".
However, if we hadn't done that we wouldn't now have our beautiful daughter from Poland. She was just getting to the orphanage, when we were in Kiev and she wasn't close to being avl for adoption. So if we hadn't been through the corrupt Ukrainian system first we wouldn't have received her referral.
Foreign adoption and I imagine adoption itself is fraught with lack of communication and disappointment between agencies and parents, but I did feel that the process in Poland was completely above board. They tried to match the children with the profiles, they had read our homestudy, knew about our experience in Ukraine, and even went out of their way to help us feel comfortable with information that they typically wouldn't do because of this past experience. Once you have moved a bit past your grief, I would encourage you to look at other programs and determine if it is something you can do. Your child may still be waiting out there for you, just as ours was.
My thoughts and prayers are with you.
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We adopted our healthy 3.5 year-old son in March of this year. What we did find is that the diagnosis of mental delay is very wide.
Our son actually had a diagnosis of Hepatitis C, but after one testing, it shows, "we can tell that he had it at one time, but there is nothing definitive to show that he has it now." He also had a diagnosis of mental delay, but this is not true.His birth mother was Hep. C positive. We re-test next week.
He was our 2nd referral. The first referral, we were told that the little 5 year-old boy we visited was mentally delayed, but followed directions. He was very small as were all the children at that orphanage. We had no connection with him, but were heart broken to leave him there. We found out afterwards that he was in a special needs orphanage - once we noticed the drastic difference in the one he was in (Kharkiv) and the one our son was in (Nikolaev).
We were never asked for money from anyone at the SDA or our translator/facilitator in order to get a healthier child.
I do think that the relationship your translator/facilitator have with the SDA makes a difference.
I am sorry for your difficulties and know how you feel. We decided that if our 2nd referral did not work out, we were coming home. I don't think I could have taken the heartbreak of a second referral gone wrong.
Out of curiosity I asked two co-workers who are immigrants from the Ukraine (one recent, one about 10 years ago) if they knew the answer to this question. Although they both admitted to knowing nothing about the adoption system in the Ukraine, they both agreed that they would be shocked if paying "extra" didn't result in a healthy referral. According to my Ukrainian co-workers, just about everything in the Ukraine - from medical care, to college admissions, to being excused from mandatory military service - works on an unspoken system of bribes.
I am not adopting yet but will most likely adopt an HIV+ kid from UKraine...please consider adopting one..In the past month I have been around 7 children recently adopted from Ukraine that are going to live a long life here in the US. many of these children are gorgeous and are adjusting well...
Deanna
mom to 6 kids (3 adopted from Ethiopia and one from Guatemala, 2 by birth)
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Michael--What makes you say that a healthy child can be acquired on the 2nd and 3rd referral? Do you know of many recent accounts that attest that this is the norm? Or is this just one person's experience? I would not want any prospective adoptive parents to be misled and go to Ukraine with that assumption. You will find more personal reports, as well as those of the Ukraine government, that indicate special needs children are available for foreigners, regardless of when the referral was made.
We did not receive a referral for a healthy child at our second referral, but were willing to accept our son and bring him home to USA where he could receive treatment.
There are many children available with treatable diseases who need treatment - Hep., HIV, etc. Notice, I said treatable, not curable.