One of the biggest deciding factors in adoption is the travel requirements. They can make or break your adoption plans, because it is a complicated process to get off of work for a length of time and also find child care for any other children you have who will not be traveling with you. Beyond that each trip is vastly expensive so traveling multiple times means multiple and costly flights. Today I am going to focus solely on Eastern Europe but stay tuned for other explanations from various parts of the world soon. I won’t list them all (there would never be room, but the most popular, and a few that I think are either really easy or really difficult)

I will start with a rather widely known country that is often a choice for many families.

Ukraine – (which is of course a blind referral program) It is immensely hard to set a time line on this because it varies so much region to region and it can also depend on if you accept your first referral or request another appointment. Nearly all families make this two trips but it can be done in one, if you are willing to stay in country for 4-8 weeks.

Latvia – Requires a total of three trips, the first to meet and bond with your child, the second for a court appearance and decision, and the third complete your embassy work and of course pick up your little one! Three trips can be difficult, and I can only imagine how hard it is to leave your little one behind twice, but I have seen many families come home proud parents.

Serbia – Comparatively Serbia has a very simple adoption process that has one trip of 15 days. Special needs adoptions are especially moving very quickly right now in this country, and depending on time of year (they do close down July and August for adoptions) you can bring your little one home rather quickly after Dossier Submission.

Russia – Russia requires one parent to travel to first meet the child and then both parents (or one if it is a single parent adoption) to travel for court. This is still a relatively easy process.

Estonia – One of the smaller adoption programs but it does require two trips. First both parents (or one if it is a single parent adoption) must travel to preview the child. For the second trip only one parent must go and it will be about two weeks long.