Waiting

I recently discovered Blogs. While surfing on the internet, I happened upon Blogs of others who are adopting children from China. At first I thought the whole thing was kind of strange, but I have decided it is a good way to keep our family and friends updated on our adoption journey, and eventually, on our trip to China. So, here is a little background on how we got to where we are today, which is basically: Waiting!!

In February 2005, Jerry and I decided to adopt a daughter from China. We chose the Great Wall China Adoption Agency (GWCA), and began gathering the necessary documents, aka our "dossier". We were told that after our agency mailed our dossier to China, we would wait about six months to receive a referral (match with a child). About 6 to 8 weeks after receiving our referral, we would travel to China to pick up our daughter. Simple, right? Wrong.

When we decided to adopt, we had already planned a Disney Cruise for December 2005, in celebration of my mom's 60th birthday. We were concerned that our trip to China might come at the same time as the cruise. Oh, how naive we were!

Our paperwork took longer to gather than we expexted. Our dossier was finally sent to China on June 24, 2005, and officially logged in to the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) on July 8, 2005. This date became known as our Log In Date, or LID. We were still expecting to wait 6 months until we received a referral, so we looked forward to a referral in January, with travel in late February or early March. I daydreamed about how cute my little girl would look in her first Easter dress.

Everything went along as expected until October 2005, when things started slowing down dramatically. Each month our agency saw fewer and fewer referrals, and the wait lengthened. By the time we got to January 2006, I was resigned to travel in the summer. I told myself it was a good thing, because Doug & Katie would be out of school.

But now it looks like we will miss the summer break altogether. In April, the CCAA completed referrals for families who were LID through June 6, 2005. In May, they completed referrals for families who were LID through June 15, 2005. We are getting closer, but if it keeps going at this rate, the earliest we can expect to travel will be September!