Television personality Sindri Sindrason announced that he and his husband adopted a daughter last year, making them the first same-sex couple to adopt a child in Iceland, Vísir reports.
Although we reported this past March that no same-sex couples had adopted children yet, Sindri and his husband started the adoption process over four years ago. Their daughter, Emilía Katrín, was born to an Icelandic woman who lives abroad, and a Serbian man who was no longer in the picture. The birth mother signed the adoption papers while she was still pregnant.
Emilía was kept in foster care in her birth country until the couple’s paperwork passed inspection. “The system here is made up of some great and very efficient people,” Sindri said. “They look into everything, practically even your sock drawer.”
They brought her home at the beginning of 2012, when she was three years old. After arriving in Iceland, Emilía entered the Laufásgborg daycare whose educators quickly helped her reach the same language and social development as her peers. She is four and a half years old now.
Adoption for same-sex couples was legalized in 2006, yet Sindri and his husband are still reportedly the only couple to have gone through the process here, and among only a handful in Scandinavia. “It’s not easy for men in our position to have children,” Sindri said. “Fortunately the government plans to legalize surrogacy. If adoption had not been available to us, we would have gone abroad to find a surrogate. There’s no question.”
*Pictured baby unrelated to story
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