An example from the experience of adoption by Germans in Ukraine

My husband is 45, and I am 43 years old, we do not have children, but we have wanted children for many years. We have a good financial position.

Unfortunately, due to medical reasons, I cannot have any more children.

We have been trying to adopt children in Germany for a long time, but it is not possible for known reasons, such as age restrictions, etc.

I oppose surrogacy programs for ethical and legal reasons.

Then we learned about the company Ahrens+Schwarz, based in Kyiv/Ukraine, through the recommendation of friends.

The promises and descriptions online sounded good, so I emailed the company. I soon received a response from Ahrens+Schwarz and the first telephone consultation took place. The Director is a German who has been living in Ukraine for a long time, and also organizes and deals with adoption within the framework of a law firm.

What was described on the site was discussed in more detail and sounded completely transparent and suitable for us.

After some discussions with my husband, we decided to work together with the company and go to Ukraine to prepare thoroughly. At first, of course, we had concerns about the security situation during the hostilities in Ukraine.

But a company employee agreed to pick us up near the border with Poland.

So, we met there at the hotel booked by the company in Yaroslav, on the Polish-Ukrainian border.

Mr. Ahrens explained the whole process and individual steps to us. All open questions were answered to our complete satisfaction.

So, the next morning we entered Ukraine by car through the Polish-Ukrainian border crossing in Krakovets and together we drove about 60 km to the Ukrainian city of Lviv, which is located not far from the border.

Mr. Ahrens booked a hotel for us again. It has parking in the underground parking lot and its own security.

On the same day, we visited a notary in Lviv, where we signed a power of attorney and other documents for Mr. Ahrens to initiate everything necessary.

He also prepared for us in advance a list of documents that we brought with us.

Then we were able to leave the next day.

The rest of the preparatory stages for obtaining a residence permit in Ukraine were completed by the Ahrens+Schwarz law firm in about 3 months.

We both received a Ukrainian residence permit and registration in Ukraine.

This set the stage for the adoption process to begin.

Next, it was necessary to obtain confirmation of adoptability, in connection with which our candidacies were considered and included in the database as adopters in Ukraine.

We came here 2 times. They visited various doctors – a dermatologist-psychiatrist, a physiologist, a narcologist, a family doctor and underwent various laboratory tests, AIDS, Wasserman’s reaction, etc. We ourselves were surprised how much is analyzed here and what efforts are made for it.

But lawyer Galkina and translator Svitlana from Ahrens+Schwarz organized almost everything for us and were always there, so our efforts were minimized without waiting.

The course on adoption of orphans can be completed online.

This was not a problem with the help of a translator and a lawyer.

Then there was a visit to our rented apartment in Kyiv on the spot and a conversation with the children’s service. In a few weeks, we received the positive news that we are adoptive parents. At the same time, we were registered as candidates for adoption throughout Ukraine.

Everything was perfectly organized in terms of time, so our stay in Ukraine was short.

We then searched the database for the children.

After some time we saw Andrii here. At that time he was in an orphanage near Kyiv. Custody rights were taken away from the biological parents many years ago. He had no other relatives. Then the translator contacted the management of the orphanage and we visited him at the orphanage. The house manager and staff were very helpful and supported us in our project. Reduced the child’s fears so that the first meeting went without complications.

Two weeks later, there was another meeting at the orphanage, which again went very harmoniously. Andrii is an active child who was very trusting already on the second visit.

The next was a longer date with an overnight stay at our house in a rented apartment in Kyiv. This too went very well and without complications.

So we decided that we want to adopt Andrii. In the meantime, additional meetings were held over longer periods of time and another Social Services/Children’s Services report was prepared with the help of a law firm, which was positive, thus meeting all the prerequisites for a successful adoption.

A lawyer from the law firm Ahrens und Schwarz filed an application for adoption in the family court and the adoption was granted as expected. We were overjoyed that our desire to have children was now a reality.

In the end, however, several formalities had to be completed before leaving the country. After the court’s decision on adoption became legally binding, we were entered on the birth certificate as parents, and the child was given our last name. Children’s passport etc. issued. Ahrens+Schwarz took care of everything for us on behalf of us.

Now Andriy has finally become our son, formally.

And now the day of departure has come.

All three of us left via the Krakovets border crossing.

There were no questions at the Ukrainian passport control at all.

Of course, we had the original adoption certificate just in case.

On entering Poland, Andrii’s passport was examined for a long time at the checkpoint.

We were then asked if he was our son, to which we answered in the affirmative.

We also showed the apostilled and translated birth certificate that we prepared for this purpose and declared that we adopted the child. Recognition of adoption is yet to come.

However, no further documents were required such as adoption certificate etc. and instead we were wished good travels. Such cases are probably already known there. Today, adoption abroad is not so rare.

Then the lawyer-partner in Germany took care of the recognition of our adoption decision, which took about six months and was more formal than we thought and did not cause any problems.