What a joy to see our Bulgaria program continue to thrive! This year, 19 children from Bulgaria were matched with MLJ families! The children ranged in age from one-year-old twin sisters to a fifteen-year-old boy.
This year, MLJ Adoptions received nine referrals for single children, all three years old and under!
We had two families pursue adoptions of children off our Waiting Child Photolisting. This means that three children (one family adopted a sibling group) joined forever families when there weren’t any families waiting on matches or any in-country options for permanency.
Three families were matched with sibling groups! Two of these families were matched with sibling groups of three; one family was matched with one-year old twin sisters! Families seeking to adopt sibling groups waited an average of 17 months from dossier submission to referral this year.
Over a quarter of referrals given to U.S. families in 2017 were MLJ Adoptions’ families! MLJ families also experienced shorter average wait times than other U.S. families. The overall average time that all families waited was 24.2 months from dossier registration to referral. The overall average time that MLJ families waited was 17.9 months from dossier registration to referral.*
In addition to the 19 children matched with MLJ Adoptions’ families adopting from Bulgaria this year, 18 children joined their forever families!
We’re thrilled that each year, our Bulgaria program continues to grow. If your family is seeking to adopt from a stable, predictable country program, adopting from Bulgaria could be a great fit!
MLJ Adoptions is thankful for another year of serving vulnerable children and families adopting from Bulgaria! We cannot wait to see what 2018 has in store for our families and the worthy children waiting for them.
If you’re interested in adopting from Bulgaria, contact us.
*These numbers are through August 2017, and calculating from dossier registration to referral, which is slightly different from how we normally measure waiting times.