Hi there. My sister has been talking about adoption, and I have contributed in the past to organizations for the orphanages in the Ukraine (Aid for Orphans was one), and was wondering if any of you have any information on adopting from those orphanages? can someone point me in the right direction?

FOC home (http://www.focusonchildren.com)
Buckner Orphan Care International (http://www.bucknerinternationaladoption.org)
Commonwealth Adoptions International - Adopting Russia, China, Columbia (http://www.commonwealthadoption.org)

I hate to say it but I have 2 families that I'm friends with who have adopted from the Ukraine and they've had major problems with behavior with some of the kids. One family adopted a sibling group - 2 boys and a girl and the girl is right now in an institution after trying to kill her siblings (she's now 12 and has been here since she was 5). The family is the most loving, wonderful family you can imagine and they've struggled with her so much. It got to be too much for the mom to watch the 4 kids (they had also adopted another little girl from Vietnam), and keep them all safe from the one girl.

The other family has behavior problems with both the boy and girl who they adopted at 18 months old each - they were not siblings but were from the same orphanage as each other - not the same as above. Mom is a wonderful woman who's older and single and had her parents move in with her to help care for the kids (she's a famous neurologist).

I don't know what happened to these kids but I'm hearing more and more of this kind of thing from kids in the former Russian nations. I DO know the little girl in the first case was being trained up for prostitution - that's what they did in this orphanage. The boys would go to a work camp when they turned 8 and the girls would become prostitutes. It's honestly permanently damaged that poor child.

Ann