There are between 1,000 and 500 American, French, Canadian, Italian, Ukrainian, Israeli and Spanish families waiting for appointments to adopt Ukrainian children. There are different guesses floating around from Ukrainian faciliators, people who visited the NAC, past adoption numbers, etc....


Guesses based on guesses. Ukraine is a country that runs on rumors. And often the rumors are accurate. Unless they are completely wrong. :)


There are rumors that the SDA is hiring more staff then the NAC. And the SDA wants to get the backlogged (approved dossiers) processed quickly.


Back in 2000, families just showed up at the NAC. There wasn't an appointment system and it was chaotic. They processed 50 to 100 families a week. When the appointment system was established the NAC was trying to see 40 families per week.

The Center for Child Adoption plans to serve ten families per day.

From: Ukrainian Embassy in Washington DC

If the SDA processes 40 families a week it would take 6 months and 1 week to clear the backlog.


The Joint Council on International Children's Services (JCICS) recently published the US State Department's guess. The JCICS isn't a governmental organization.

The US Department of State estimates that the transition to the new Ukrainian adoption authority will be complete by mid to late June 2006. At this time, no appointments for US families in the process of adopting have been set up with the new office in Ukraine.


From: May 17, 2006

Commonwealth Adoptions International Agency put a guess on their web site. They are are posting the Ukrainian government's guess.

an unofficial date has been announced for when it will re-open to the public, and that date is June 20, 2006. The new State Department for Adoption projects that on that date they will begin accepting new dossiers and assigning travel appointments.


From: CAI - Ukraine

What does that mean? Here is my guess.


The SDA will try to process at least 40 families per week. They will focus on domestic adoptions first.


My guess is that the SDA will have to process 50 or less domestic adoptions.


I say this because the SDA will start processing domestic adoptions the week of June 10 according to rumor. Then the SDA will start processing international adoptions on June 20. This is less then a week, so I would guess they have 40 to 50 adoptions to process.


You can always email me at adoptukraineblog@adoptionmail.com with any thoughts, questions or rumors.