Time, time, time......

1,613 days

38,712 hours

2,322,720 Minutes

139,363,200 seconds

That’s how long we’ve been waiting.  Keep in mind; these figures are based on our LID, not from when we actually started the whole process.  Our paper chase took us over 6 months to complete.  It’s going to be a few more months before we know anything. 

Here are the facts and what we do know:

·         Latest referrals were made for families logged in through May 29, 2006.

·         There are 28 referral days in front of us

·         We are “On Deck” with our agency

·         Unless the CCAA comes to a screeching halt, we WILL see our baby in 2011. 

Holidays are the hardest time.  Everything you see is geared towards families and children.  It makes the emptiness in our house just that much starker.  There are a lot of people out there, with kids, who take it all for granted.  I long to hear my child(ren) running through the house on Christmas morning, hyper and excited to open gifts.  I can SEE it sometimes when I’m sitting in the recliner in our living room.  I know Jason feels the same way.  It’s hard to get into the celebrations when you know that a piece of your family is missing.

We don’t put a tree up…haven’t for the last couple of years.  It’s just the 2 of us and we don’t see a reason to right now.  Next year, it will probably be our first Christmas with our little one.  Oh I can’t wait!  The tree WILL be going up then.  I can’t wait to see her eyes when she sees it for the first time.  We even already have a decorating plan.  I have a Cricut machine so all of our ornaments will be paper.  That way, if one falls off the tree, there will be no cut fingers or toes. 

Alas, I’m rambling.  I fully intended this post to be about my next guesstimates and such.  So here’s my guesstimate:  My guess for the next batch is June 5, 2006 based on the past numbers and referral rates.  It’s still looking like a May/June referral for us, meaning July/August travel.  It will probably be another month to month and a half before we see if I was right…..again.  This last year, I was wrong for only one batch….and that was because they referred MORE than I had anticipated.  I hope that I’m wrong in that manner a lot more in the beginning of 2011 so that our referral comes all that much sooner.

4 more shopping days until Christmas….

Patience is a Virtue???

December 1, 2005, Jason and I submitted our application to adopt a child from China.  At that time, the wait was approximately 8 months from application to travel.  We were told that we would most likely be parents by Christmas, 2006. 

Oh how wrong they were.  We had major issues getting some of the paperwork needed…mainly, my employment verification letter.  My HR Department wanted the Chinese Government to call their 1-800 employee verification hotline.  Ummm, would you willingly tell a Communist Government to do that?  No way!  They’d laugh in your face!  Getting the letter written and having it use acceptable terminology was close to a 3 month process.   That form was faxed back and forth between the US and China more times than I can count on one hand.  I’m honestly surprised we weren’t charged for the fax bill.

Our paperwork was DTC (Dossier To China) on June 13, 2006.  Still doable for a Christmas referral as at that time, the wait had shortened to 6 months.

Then came the period between September, 2006 and February, 2007.  The program came to a virtual screeching halt.  The number of referral days started dwindling until they hit March and April of 2007.  Things seemed to have stopped at that time.  Now, I have no idea what really caused it.  We can only speculate.  China was preparing for the 2008 Olympics…officials claimed that there weren’t enough paper ready babies to refer…yada, yada, yada.  All I know is the data.  They barely did 2 months of referral days in 2007 and 2008.  2009 saw only March of 2006 referred.  We’ve seen a bit of a speed up in 2010 so far.  The next batch will probably be the last batch for 2010.  I’m guessing they won’t complete May of 2006, but will come close.  I expect the cut-off to be May 29, 2006.  I’m guessing that date based on past data.  That being said, based on the small numbers from the October batch, we won’t be getting a referral until April of 2011 now.  Hey, I suppose that’s good news because at one time, I was predicting 2013. 

Fact:  I do know that the Special Needs program has increased the number of children to be adopted.  They’ve been putting most of their focus on that. 

What I don’t understand is if you want to put that much emphasis on the SN program, why wouldn’t they close the Non-Special Needs program and solely focus on SN?  It’s kinder than letting those parents now logging into the NSN program to just sit for years and years. 

So in five years, I’ve been told MANY MANY times to be patient.  At this point, I don’t know how much MORE patient one can get!