Ukraine Adoption

The long road

Hey, let's go back to the beginning of this story.
In the fall of 2003, John and I decided to consider adopting a child. We have the room in our home and our hearts. We have a wonderful biological 9-year-old boy and figured we would love to have a little girl. I did a ton of research on domestic and international adotion on the Internet. It's overwhelming! There is so much out there to read.

I stumbled across a website on international adoption and selected various countries to learn about the process. In some countries, you are shown a picture and maybe a video of a child that they deem appropriate for you, based on your application. But in Ukraine, you go to the country before a child is picked out and you decide there which one best fits in with your family. That sounded great. The children in the orphanages looked like our family==we are desendants of Eastern Europeans.

So now what?? We decided to do an independent adoption, which means no agency. We wanted to save some money, and I'm kind of a stickler for getting things done in my time frame. Fast! But I must say that the appointments and mounds of paperwork were almost too much to bear!

So here's what we did: We took one step at a time. If you look too far ahead in the process, you may get discouraged. We sent in our forms and got fingerprinted and then started pecking away at the paperwork.

So that's the name of my next entry: Pecking away at the paperwork! Stay tuned.

Laura