10 Month Anniversary

Ten months down.... How many more to go?

I wanted to post something extra special today... but haven't really been inspired with something 'amazing'. After five months of paper chasing, and now ten months of waiting it is not very exciting to look at another possible twelve months wait.

The best I can say is that the referral batches seem to have stabilized and I'm still holding on to the idea that we are going to be referred in twelve batches from now. This could be twelve months more or less...

In the mean time I do have a lot to do to prepare for our travel and bringing Hope home. Lots of sewing projects, preparing her room, scrap booking Chris' pictures, volunteering at school. Before I know it it will be June and there will only be seven batches to go... then the summer will fly and there will only be four batches to go... then the holidays will fly...and we will finally see our daughter... Chris' sister.

Praying blessings of love and protection for our baby girl.

China Update

I've actually been putting this off...Holidays, new rules and no speed-up.

It is that time again, every 4-5 weeks there is referral news and new stuff out of China.

The second to last set of referrals were mailed November 30th and the families with LID's from August 26th through September 8th 2005 got to see their babies for the first time. That batch of referrals got through 14 days. (8/26 - 9/8)

With our LID of 3/22/06 that put us at roughly 6.5 months of referrals in front of us. The CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) has been processing an average of 15 days every month. So with that rough estimate it puts us at about 13 more months wait.

So we sat back and waited for the December referrals to come out, a lot of people hoping for Christmas referrals but they didn't come. However, January 4th the next batch was mailed, covering September 9th - September 27th. (19 days!) Yahoo! Seemingly a bigger batch, yet I guess the numbers were actually smaller due to a decrease in requests in the fall months. Now we are just under 6 months in line, and about a 12 month wait! (+2 months for travel)

Not a big change but not bad news either. I think that what was once erratic, is now (hopefully) going to be more predictable. My sadness over the whole wait has been primarily due to the roller coaster of change. Now that I know that I have about a year wait, I can plan and make the most of the time. It's all about stability. If this changes... then prepare for me to loose it... again!

REVIEW ROOM
I am still not sure what is going on with the Review Room either. The CCAA has different rooms where Dossier's of parents and orphans are translated, reviewed and matched. Thus, the Review Room and the Matching Room. Our Dossier was placed in the Review Room once it was translated about a month after it reached China last March. On November 2nd they moved all of January 2006 from the Review Room into the Matching Room. We have heard rumors that a few people with February, March and April LID's have been contacted from the Review Room with questions about their Dossiers. I am pretty sure that the CCAA is on the verge of completing February if not March as well. This will be a milestone for us and will give us something to celebrate! I'm just disappointed that it seems to be taking so long. Especially when April people are getting calls you would think that they are finished with March.

On the other hand, I have heard that each agency has their own reviewer(s). So our small agency has a reviewer who might be in charge of several small agencies. Another reviewer may be one of a few that only review for a very large agency. In this case my reviewer may be done with all of his(hers) and on to the next months, while the ones handling large agencies are still February or March.

NEW RULES
Okay, a lot of you have been asking about the new rules that China has put on adoptive parents. These rules apply to those who are logged in on or after May 1, 2007. This will not apply to us already logged in or those in the process of paperchasing who can get LID before the deadline.

The general terms are exclusion of singles, anyone 50 and over, no serious diseases or mental illness including depression, no one with BMI 40 or over, no criminal history, drug or alcohol addiction, high school education required, minimums set for salary and net worth, newly married and divorcee's must be married a certain number of years, limit on number of children in the home etc.

If you are interested in reading the official list click here: http://chinaadopttalk.com/2006/12/22/official-ccaa-statement/

MY THOUGHTS
It is a privilege to adopt a child. Period. These new rules have stirred the adoption community. The question arises to me on some of them, "Were they allowed before?"

I think that if the Chinese government wants to make sure that their children are going to the best homes they have the right to do that. Their adoption program in the past was very inviting compared to some of the other international adoption countries, (don't even get me started on the US) it became so popular that there are twice as many requesting children from China than a year or two ago. Now there is a huge backlog of waiting families.

On the other hand, instead of opening more orphanages to International Adoption China decided to impose higher restrictions to limiting the number of eligible families by almost 50% based on some polls I have seen.

This will not affect the wait for those currently in the system, unless people drop out for various reasons, but even then I'm sure that number of people will be negligible.

I still believe that trying to convince birth mothers in the US to pick us out of a bunch of other families would be more restrictive in so many other ways.

I'm still in.... still waiting.... and still hopeful!