简体中文
EnglishWhat "Independent Ukraine Adoption" Means on adoptukrainesite.wordpress.com
Updated
On this site, "independent Ukraine adoption" means a family manages an adoption from Ukraine largely on its own, without hiring an agency, facilitator, or lawyer to run the process for them. The site is a personal, non-commercial information resource: the authors state plainly that they are not an agency, facilitator, or lawyer, are not affiliated with any of those, and do not charge for any services or information. It exists to share one family's experience and the experiences of other families who adopted from Ukraine, so readers can decide whether to pursue a similar path.
Who runs the site and why
The authors describe confirming they could not have children biologically, then deciding to adopt from eastern Europe. Through Cathy Harris — someone who had been through a difficult adoption herself and connected families adopting from Ukraine — they met other families at various stages of the process. In the summer of 2000, they adopted their son from Ukraine.
They built the site to help families thinking about adopting from Ukraine, and to show families who cannot have children biologically a way to find their children "without spending beyond their financial means." That framing is the core of the independent approach: the family, not a paid intermediary, carries the work.
What the site is and is not
| The site is | The site is not |
|---|---|
| A personal account of one family's Ukraine adoption | An agency, facilitator, or lawyer |
| A collection of other families' experiences | Affiliated with any agency, facilitator, or lawyer |
| Free to read, with no charge for information | A paid service or subscription |
| A starting point for your own research | A source of current legal or procedural advice |
The authors also warn that the information is public knowledge and may be outdated — some things have changed, others have not — and they tell readers to speak with people who have more recent knowledge before relying on anything here.
What content the site organizes around
The navigation reflects the practical concerns of an independent adoption:
- Adoption Timeline — the sequence of steps as this family experienced them
- Our Costs — what the process cost them
- Fundraisers — how they approached funding
- Adoption Info and Helpful Links — background and pointers to other resources
- Ukrainian Angels — a named section of the site
- About Ukraine, People, Culture, Language Tips, Markets, Metric — practical orientation for time spent in the country
- Photos, Adoption Orphanage, Sightseeing — the lived experience
How to use it
- Read the Adoption Timeline and Our Costs first — they set expectations for effort and money.
- Treat Adoption Info and Helpful Links as leads to verify, not instructions.
- Cross-check anything procedural against people with recent experience, as the authors themselves advise.
- Note the date context: the site's archive is from October 2011, and the adoption described took place in 2000.
Key caveat
Because the site is explicitly not a professional service and its content may be outdated, use it to understand what independent adoption looked like for these families and what questions to ask — not as a current guide to Ukrainian adoption law or process.