Some reassurance

Rumors have been flying around as to whether or not the 2008 Olympics being held in Beijing will effect adoption. Some fear that referrals and travel approvals will come to a stand still during the games and others question whether it will have a negative effect at all. Our agency has been very hesitant to assume anything one way or the other. However, today we received an update from our China Program Director that was very encouraging.

Here it is:

Melody Zhang, our Associate Director, had a very open conversationwith top leaders at the CCAA this week on the matter of how the 2008Olympics may affect international adoption from China. The CCAAdoes not believe the 2008 Olympic will affect international adoptionfrom China. The most likely thing to happen will be if the Chinesegovernment asks everyone in Beijing not to work for a while duringthe Olympics in Beijing. Then the CCAA workers will be just likeother workers who will not be working for a period of time. TheCCAA leaders said this will not effect adoption that much becausethe CCAA will just pick up the work the next month and finish bothmonths' assignments. Another affect might be that families whoreceive their referrals during the Olympics or just before theOlympics may not be able to get flights, hotels, etc. easily. TheCCAA probably will extend the effective period for travel approvalsfrom three months to a longer period.

Ann Tollefson

China Program Director

The opening games start in August, only eight months from now. Whatever happens with the Olympics will effect our adoption since we won't be traveling before August. So, news like this is good to hear. It sounds like the CCAA will be doing whatever they can to keep things moving along during the games.

21 month anniversary!!

Happy Anniversary, baby girl! We've been waiting 21 long months to see your pretty face. It's been worth every minute. We'll wait a million more if we need to.

WE LOVE YOU AND WE MISS YOU!

Mom, Dad, Jacob and Benji

Referral News!

The CCAA just updated their website to let everyone know that they have finished matching families thru December 14, 2005. This batch of referrals covered families who had log in dates of December 9, 2005 - December 14, 2005. A six day batch (two of which were on a weekend...in other words, two of the days weren't even log in date days). Our agency is expecting their package with the referral information tomorrow. We only had families logged in on 1 day for this batch, December 13, 2005. I can't imagine what those families must be feeling right now. They have waited TWO YEARS to get to this point. Now they only have to wait till morning to see their child's face for the first time.

My dream of seeing December 2005 get matched in 3 batches has been officially dashed to pieces. It won't happen. I don't even know if it will happen in 4. My agent emailed an interesting, but disheartening update on the China program the other day. In it she referenced a conversation that Melody Zhang, CHI's Associate Director, had with the CCAA's Director Lu and Director Chu on November 27th. For the first time that I know about, they spoke of the actual number of dossiers they currently have and the number of dossiers they have been receiving on average each month. They also mentioned the number of referrals they have been sending out each month.

They said that there are currently 30,000 dossiers logged in at the CCAA. Prior to the new requirements that began in May 2007 they were receiving, on average, 2,000 dossiers per month. They said that they are sending out, on average, 600 referrals per month, 1/3 of which are special needs. There were other things discussed, but this was the most important information to me.

What does it all mean? Well, it appears that they are sending out around 400 referrals per month for healthy children (1/3 of 600). The rest of the referrals are for Special Needs (a different program entirely). Since they have, on average, 2000 families per month waiting to be matched then it should take them 5 batches (or 5 months) to match one month's worth of waiting families. There are currently 3 months worth of families logged in ahead of us. Based on these numbers alone, we can expect a wait of 15 more months (give or take a month). It's a very, very, very hard pill to swallow.

Anything can happen, things could speed up...I for one refuse to rest my hope on anything but the facts at hand.

Anyway, that's the latest update on the China program. I wish so badly that news was more encouraging. It's taken me 5 days to even want to blog about this...I haven't even spoken of it to anyone other than Doug. I figured I'd wait until referrals came out to see if they follow this pattern...sadly they do. At least tomorrow I'll get to read all the exciting announcements from those who did get their long awaited referral. That always makes me feel good.