Eastern Europe needs?

Russia, is way too expensive nowadays. We have 6 kids from Russia & couldn't do it again. Bulgaria is a long wait IF you choose a healthy infant referral. They are almost non-existent. Most are at least 2yo for a young one. We just got back from Bulgaria last week. A 4yo girl, 9yo girl and 10yo boy are who we are adopting. To say our medicals were a nightmare may be an understatement. However, we took that leap of faith. Glad we did. Perfectly healthy kids. In love. Could not have asked for better. I have heard this over and over from folks. Adjusting parameters seems to help. Serbia. I've adopted from there years ago. I would not do an independent adoption at this time. They are currently working new things out. Be very very aware if you go w/ an agency. I heard some are trying to charge folks $30K to $40K for a Serbian adoption which is out of the question. BTW, there are NO healthy referrals, just special needs children from Serbia. Ukraine now is doing no referrals for children under 5yo unless special needs. Someone correct me if that rule did not go through. Pretty sure it did. Most from Ukraine are coming home as special needs children however, does not mean there are not healthy children available. Just means many are choosing the special needs route. I know nothing about Moldova so can't help you there. Poland is a fairly long country stay. couple of weeks. I had a friend try to get a referral from there but wait kept getting to her. Not sure if any of this helped or not. Good luck w/ whatever country you choose. It is a very tough decision. After our Bulgarian adoptions, we are pretty sure we're done. 10 kids is enough. For us anyways. However, IF we did this again, we'd go back to Bulgaria in a heartbeat. Best wishes on your journey. Feel free to write me privately if you'd like.

I don't know the international adoption scene because I am now based in country in the Czech Republic but I know there are plenty of Romani children needing homes. We just adopted a 9-month-old baby boy. Completely healthy. Amazingly non-problematic family history. But Romani ethnic background. He had been legally open for adoption since a small infant but we weren't eligible until now because he was in a different county. No one in that county wanted him because he has "Romani background" on his paperwork, although you can not tell at all to look at him. There are hundreds of waiting adoptive families in that county waiting 4 years plus for a healthy WHITE infant and they won't take this one because even if he looks white he supposedly isn't. There are hundreds like this in our immediate area and this is the Czech Republic, practically Western Europe. So, the need is there if you can get through the red tape. I know that the situation is similar if not more extreme in countries to the east and south.

We adopted from Poland,most of the children coming now seem to be older, special needs or sibling groups. I ended up making two trips there, one ten day trip to meet our son and then the adoption trip was six weeks. It was tough.

Being in Poland in an orphanage isn't a great place to be (well in any country for that matter.) Even IF the orphanage is well run, nice, kids have clothes, toys, therapies, etc. The Polish are adopting the infants and kids with no problems, but other kids will get stuck in the system. Our 3.5 yo (now 5.5) has some vision issues that kept her from being adopted in-country. It isn't correctable and she isn't blind. She is a beautiful little girl that just needed a chance and family to love her (and lots of focused therapy). But, I don't think Poland is much cheaper than Russia and time in country can be very long. We did go to Ukraine first and came home without completing the process. Poland was a better run program, above board, complete disclosure, and good care of their kids. Picking a country is probably the hardest part of the process.

I second what Grumblers Ridge says. We adopted from Russia back in 2006. We set out to adopt an ethnic Russian child. I think some of the agencies try to match the features of the prospective child with that of the adoptive parents. I have dark hair and dark eyes and we were referred only kids with dark hair. I didnt' know until our first trip in Russia (until the orphanage staff told us) that the child we were adopting was at least part Roma. I couldnt tell from the photos in the referral. She was our fifth referral having turned down several other referrals prior due to some heavy health issues. Again other than being Roma in origin, our daughter had no major health issues on her referral. Fast forward five years and she is very healthy, smart, and very athletic. She likes all sports and she is very social. I would recommend adopting a child of roma origin for folks who could get past the ethnicity issue. Amy K, NJ

I would also suggest researching attachment and post institutional issues. Most Eastern European countries do not recognize these issues and often symptoms do not show up in an orphanage situation.

I would also suggest researching attachment and post institutional issues. Most Eastern European countries do not recognize these issues and often symptoms do not show up in an orphanage situation.