Adoption
Russia anyone?
anyone adoption from Russia? We are starting the process now.
(the baby in the picture is our (biological) son!)
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Re: Russia anyone?
Thanks Honeydew!
We are adopting a boy, 18 months or under. Either using Frank Adoption or FTIA. Having a hard time choosing b/w them!
J+O-The Russian adoption process was not too bad. ?We had our adoption complete in 10 months from first filling out application to bringing home our son. ?It's a typical process as far as filling out paperwork, background checks, homestudy,dossier, etc. ?Once dossier is filled out and translated, it is sent to Russia. ?We waited about 6 weeks for a referral. We actually had one at about 3 weeks, but sadly had to turn it down for medical reasons. ?After consulting with a international adoption doctor, it was suspected he had severe Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and at almost 4 years old, still did not walk due to this. ?Very very difcifult to turn a referral down, and even now I still think of him. ?We then waited another 3 weeks and got the referral for our son. ?His referral came the week before Christmas, so our timeline would have been shorter had we not been entering the holiday slowdown. ?We accepted and then waited for travel dates, and were told probably sometime in January. ?They called us in the middle of January on a Friday and asked us to leave for Russia the following Wednesday. ?We had to have medical exams and blood work done here and then take the results with us. ?We also could have done all of that in Russia, but decided to do it here instead. ?We did have a medical exam in Russia, but no bloodwork. ?This is all for our region, and different regions have different requirements. ?Our son was in an orphanage about an hour outside of St. Petersburg.
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We did all the legal stuff, and were then permitted to meet him in the orphanage. ?We got to spend about 6 hours over 2 days with him, and then had to petition to adopt him. ?We filled out that paperwork and left for home, while waiting for all the legal paperwork to be completed so we could come back for our court date. ?He had to be officially cleared for adoption, and all existing relatives had to have signed off on placing him for adoption. ?They DO NOT know he was in the process of being adopted, supposedly, just that they signed again that they could not take care of him and they were allowing his adoption. ?
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Once all that is complete, a court date was set and we were invited back. ?We had to prepare a speech for the judge, and court lasted about an hour. ?We were then granted the adoption, but most regions have a 10-day wait. ?A handful of regions waive this 10-days and you can go right from court to orphanage to pick up your child, but St. Petersburg region is not one, so we fill out his acceptance, etc, and then are required to wait 10-days before we can attain custody. ?
?We decided to come home for 1 week, then return for pick-up. ?We got back, picked up his new birth certificate with our names on it, as well as a copy of his original. ?The original is then sealed as if it never existed, ?As far as Russia is concerned legally, I gave birth to him in Russia; that is how it appears on his birth certificate. ?We get his adoption certificate and then finally get to pick him up. ?
The whole process was awesome and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I just had a baby six weeks ago, but we hope to adopt again in the future, and I would love to go back to Russia. ?We have asked to be notified if there is notice of a sibling that comes available for adoption. ?Some agencies have a slightly different process, but the Russian process is fairly standard. ?The wait for younger children is usually a bit longer, but I am not positive to the wait length for right now. ?We said a child under 36 months because most of those kids are deemed too "old" to be adopted and are then rarely moved out of the system.
?We did have an international adoption doctor look at his referral and we could have sent info back to her once we met him, but we knew he was just fine when we met him and spent time with him. ?
If you have any other questions, please let me know. ?I highly recommend the process and it's so neat and sad at the same time. ?Some conditions of the orphanages are very saddening, and you see how many children will live and age out of the system, never having a chance at a family. ?If it wasn't so pricey, I would adopt a lot of them:) ?
Hope this helps a little!
Suzy?
I think that is what we will end up doing and have been reading up on it. ?I threw some links in my blog under adoption, including one that is a pretty extensive list of blogs out there for Russian adoptions.
Have you heard about any of the communication from Russia recently? ? ?I don't want to scare you or turn you off to the program, but I'm a little concerned myself regarding what this will mean. ?An adopted child died due to being left in a car, the father was acquitted and they are understandably upset. ?There was a memo sent in Dec from a Russian official to someone here. ?I think it really sheds light on the need to go with a agency in good standing and ask a lot of questions. ?
Here is the link....https://www.jcics.org/Russia.htm?
We used the agency that brought that little boy home that unfortunately was left in a hot car, and the agency has been cleared of any wrongdoing, and are still adopting many kids out of Russia. ?I would use that agency again in a minute, as everything went exactly as they said it would, and we have several close friends who also used that agency. ?We all have come home with awesome kids through a great program. ?
With that said, the climate of international adoption is changing every day, so I would check on the immediate future of adoptions before beginning, but I don't see Russian adoptions going anywhere right now. ?