The options for a single male who wants to adopt are somewhat limited. At this moment in history, the only European country that will allow me to adopt and has children available is Ukraine. Even there, I have to get in line behind the married couples and single women.

Actually, it’s possible to adopt from Russia (and some other Eastern European countries), but not easy. Most agencies and facilitators who work in Eastern Europe won’t work with single men because the agencies have such rotten luck getting the guys home with a child. Agencies don't want a string of failed adoptions on their record, so they tend to shy away from even trying. The problem with single men adopting in Eastern Europe is the regional judges—most of them won’t approve a single guy, even if all the paperwork is in order.

Ukraine requires that a child be withheld from international adoption for a period of 12 months after entering their system. The waiting period is designed to give in-country adoptive parents first choice, and is only waived in cases where the child has profound medical problems. So the absolute youngest healthy child I could adopt would be 13 months old.

Looked at without blinders, the 13-month-olds are half crack babies (or FAS, or Downs, or AIDS, etc.), and half already spoken-for by the married couples behind whom I’m in line. While it’s possible I could get an infant, it’s far more likely that the youngest children available to me will be toddlers.

Ukraine has another interesting law: Information on available children may not be released outside the country. (They’ve had problems with baby trafficking in the past.) This means that I won’t know anything about which children are available until I arrive in Kiev. There is exactly one adoption agency in Ukraine—the National Adoption Center (NAC) in Kiev. When I arrive, they’ll show me one-page summaries of children, with outdated photos and incorrect case histories. If I agree to look at a particular child from this information, they’ll issue an “invitation” (permission slip) for me to travel to the orphanage to look at that child. If it turns out the photo is years out of date, or the medical information pertains to some other child, or the kid has already been adopted, or whatever, I go back to Kiev to look at more misleading summary sheets. The process repeats until I find a child or they stop showing me possibilities.

There are far more boys than girls available in Ukraine (as in most EE countries), and far more older children than infants or toddlers. In theory, the NAC will only show me summaries of children who meet the age/sex/health criteria I specify before going over there. In practice, they’ll show me older males first, no matter what I say.

A five-year-old who has been in a Ukrainian orphanage since birth will almost certainly have developmental delays, malnutrition, and other problems. Studies show that children in such orphanages significantly lag behind their peers in language development, physical growth, and social skills. One study showed that for every year spent in an Eastern European orphanage, a child would fall behind by up to three months in reaching developmental milestones.

So, regardless of preferences, it’s better to get a child as young as possible. We are therefore putting “18 months to three years” on the documentation, knowing full well that when I arrive, they’ll show me a parade of eight-year-olds and five-year-olds first.

Of course a child who was raised in a good home originally, and only entered the orphanage because his parents died, will have fewer problems than one who was taken away from his parents due to neglect/abuse in infancy, and far fewer problems than a crack baby, a baby with FAS, or a child found abandoned in a garbage can.

It’s a crap shoot, and I won’t know until I get to Kiev what the options are. I’m keeping myself open to an older child (whose developmental status I can determine, roughly) or a toddler (whose developmental and medical problems may not be known for years, but who has a better chance of having none).