In the morning after you arrive in Kiev, your translator will arrange to pick you up or meet you for your trip to the Adoption Center.

The Adoption Center is on Taras Shevchenko Boulevard in the center of Kyiv City. It is about a 15 to 20 minute drive from the left bank and about a 10 minute walk from Kreshchatik street.

Once there, your translator will take you up to the top floor. There are no elevators, so you have about 4 floors to walk up.

The hallways are very dark in the wintertime, as it gets dark early and there is probably only one light bulb in the entire hallway. This is where you do your waiting. You will probably arrive early in the morning at a time set by your translator. You will wait in the hallway until it is your turn to be seen. Usually Mrs. Kunko sees the families first. She speaks with the translator about you and your expectations. She will tell him some generalized information. Sometimes they have trouble locating girls in the age you are specifiying and she asks will you be willing to see a different age or she might tell him that it may take a little time while the referral staff looks over the information on which children have come available.

Children must be on the National Registry for one year before they are eligible to be adopted. This gives Ukrainian Citizens first rights to adopt them. However, if a child has a health diagnosis as listed by statue they are available once there paperwork administratively clears through the AC. I hear this takes about 2 months. Therefore, there are children available under one years old.

Once Mrs. Kunko has a pretty good idea of what you are looking for and whether they can come close to a match, she speaks with the referral people and they get to work on looking for you. You will probably take a seat out in the hallway. Sometimes you can go right down to the referral office, because they can find a number of referrals relatively quickly.

In my adoption, I wanted a girl under one year old. I was told "there are no healthy girls under one year old." I knew about the law of Ukraine and said that I was willing to look at children with diagnoses. After about 20 minutes of waiting I was asked if I was willing to adopt a child with cleft palate. I said yes, so long as the child was the right child for me. Then, I was shown three referrals.

In my brothers adoption, his criteria were not so restrictive. In his and my sister-in-law's heart they were hoping for a baby boy and a toddler girl. But, their official criteria was a boy and a girl 0-4 years old. They did not wait more than a couple of minutes. Then, they went to the referral room and there were a number of referrals shown to them for the Yalichka orphanage in Simferopol.

Interestingly, their 10 month old son was not in this initial pile. He became available overnight and was shown to my brother and sister-in-law at the orphanage when we asked if they had any baby boys available. This happens sometimes, especially with the orphanages that register lots of kids and keep up with the paperwork.

When you are in the referral office, you can ask about different regions, but they will want to know why you want to go there. I wanted to stay in Kyiv, because my son was born there. But, there were no children available for adoption in Kyiv. My translator asked about Simferopol, because the company he worked for at the time had a contact in Simferopol. However, the Adoption Center stated that they had just sent a number of families there and that there weren't any girls fitting my strict criteria. Our three referrals were in Donetsk region. They were housed in three different locations.

In my case I had to return to the AC the next day, because one of the referrals could not be located. That is because her paperwork did not indicate that she was still living at home. The Guardian Council in Mariopal located the girl for them. This is rare and most families leave on the overnight train on the day they have been to the AC.

Points of Advice: Do not ask for a perfectly healthy child under one year old. By law they will have a diagnosis. If you want a child under one year old, ask what sorts of diagnoses they have. Tell them that you are willing to adopt a child with a mild to moderate special needs. Often the condition was misdiagnosed or much less severe than stated. It is difficult to diagnose children in Ukraine without all the equipment that we have here in the United States.

Having said that, however, my daughter actually had a cleft palate. Since bringing her home we realize that this condition is very minor to us. She has weathered surgery very well and is a happy bright toddler.

Another point of advice: let your warmer side show through. Don't be so nervous that the employees at the Adoption Center can't get to know you a little. They may seem stern when you meet them at first, but they are human beings.

More advice: bring photos of your family and home in America. Throw in photos of grandparents and people who will be important in your new child's life. One Adoption Center worker was very interested in my sister-in-law's 90 year old grandmother. The director thought my Ukrainian Son was gorgeous. They like to see what sort of life your adopted child will have.

Also, take time to look through the photos on the director's desk. Why? 1. She is proud of them. 2. They give you an idea of what the children look like once they get home and get some TLC. 3. It will remind you how important it is that you send photos once you are home.

Once you have your referrals, the referral staff will call to the region and let them know you are coming. They will write a letter for you to the see the referrals and once you have this letter of permission to see the referrals, then you are free to go and arrange your trip to the region.

One more thing: if you have time when you stop back through Kyiv, bring your child in for a visit. This may be difficult because of time considerations. The best time to do social visits is later in the afternoon when they are not quite so busy.

Good luck and say hi to the director for me.

-- Ann