11 Months!

It is hard to believe that we have been logged in with China for 11 months now...nearly one year. We'll have to plan some kind of celebration next month to celebrate 1 year worth of waiting! Maybe some other sort of lady bug cake might have to be created...I am not sure yet. I did read today that someone said that their facilitator met with the CCAA in May and the CCAA apparently said that:

- The CCAA will remain open during Olympic Games
- The CCAA will continue to revise dossiers
- That for referrals received in June and July (Hooray!) that parents should be understanding about the Olympic Games and that they should wait until September to travel because it will be easier and cheaper
- To help parents achieve this, travel approvals will be valid for 5 months instead of 3 for referrals received in June and July.

All good news...we were worried that all adoptions would be put on hold during this period, thus increasing the waiting times.

However, this is the time of month that referrals begin arriving...it is eerily quiet on the rumor front, no agencies are reporting that any packages are on the way, nor have they even confirmed that matching has begun. I wonder if all the latest earthquakes in China will affect this month's referral....I will update on the next batch when I hear anything...here's hoping for a really BIG batch!

Secret Sister Gift

Yesterday I received the cutest book and duck puppet from my secret sister. The book is entitled "Someday" and reminded me of all the 'somedays' that are yet to come. Thank you so much for this thoughtful gift!

"The Memory Book" Dance Recital

This weekend was the big year end dance recital for Mackenzie. She had a couple of really late nights and lots of fun with her friends. The show was called "The Memory Book" and Mackenzie was a Flapper for Tap and a Lemonade Girl for Ballet. It was such a joy to watch all the smiles from the young girls. They had so much fun. This year I helped backstage during the evening show...allows for lots of photo opportunities...I wonder how many more years I will have until it is not cool to have your mom help out...well I will enjoy it while it lasts!

We are moving up!

We spoke with our Taiwan representative today and we were told that we are now number 9 in the NSN (Non-Special needs) line. We are number 6 in a stack waiting to be sent to Taiwan and there are currently 3 applications in Taiwan. Over the next few weeks we will be having a different social worker come and speak with us about revising our homestudy to make it Taiwan specific. As it is now, it is very China specific. We also found out today that our homestudy will not be translated until it is in Taiwan. We will continue to look at children with special needs as their profiles become available, but for now our application will stay in the NSN line. Keep praying for us, specifically in this period of waiting...some days it is really hard to wait.

Taiwan Update

Today we spoke with our agency who will be handling our Taiwan adoption. Apparently Chung Yi is now allowing them to submit more applications for those families who are requesting a child between the ages of 2 & 5....so this week they will be sending 2-3 applications to Taiwan for this specific age group (Almost like a separate line to wait in.) Good news for us as it moves us up to #7 (I think) in the line of applications waiting to be sent requesting an infant girl up to the age of 24 months. *Above is a photo of the entrance to the Chung Yi Orphanage* For more photos check out my link on the bottom right side of this Blog.

Here's is some math/predictions I read online today regarding our adoption through China...

"China has 536 days of dossiers to be processed before they get to your dossier. China currently processes about 5.7 days of dossiers each month.

Our best guess: 2015-05-11

Since China generally sends out referrals in a batch about once per month, your referral date could easily vary +/- one month depending on whether you just get included or just get missed in a particular batch."

YIKES! Lets hope that this isn't what happens. We are still holding out hope that things will drastically speed up after the Olympics! OK...now I think I need some ice cream and a lot of chocolate!

10 months closer to our referral...with no idea of how many more months of waiting there will be. Referrals began to arrive today and it appears that no one with a Log In Date later than January 12th, 2006 received a referral (Remember our Log in Date is July 2, 2007). So, if January 12th is the cut off, then the CCAA only matched 3 days worth of applications. That is a very horrible case scenario. At this rate it may be YEARS before we travel to China. On the Taiwan front, a Social Worker from our agency called today and left a message stating that she wants to touch base regarding their list of waiting children (Children with special needs and/or are over the age of 3). We have told her to let us know if any girls under the age of 2 come available on this list. I guess we will have to wait until Monday to call her back.