Referrals

Referrals were received yesterday for families logged in 7/23/05 through 8/9/05. That means this month there were 18 days included in the referrals. That is an improvement, but not where we'd like it to be. So, you are asking, what does that mean for us?

Well, in a nutshell, it means this:
Best Case Scenario: If they refer the balance of August 2005 in October and then start referring FULL MONTHS (something they haven't done in a year) then we would receive our referral in MAY 2007 and would likely travel in late June or July 2007.
Worst Case Scenario: If they continue referring 1/2 of a month at a time, we would receive our referral in December 2007 and would likely travel in February or March 2008.
Most Likely: Since I do not believe that we are looking at either one of these predictions, I'll give my prediction as most likely. Based on what I've seen so far, I think we will get our referral around August or September 2007 and will travel Late October - December 2007.

When we started this process in October of 2005, we were told that the wait was about 6 months. We had visions of having our daughter home for Christmas this year. Now, I will be thrilled if she's home for Christmas 2007. Why so long? Everyone asks me this, and really, I don't have a good answer. I've heard about everything under the sun, but I believe the slowdown is because of several factors.
1. Not as many babies are being abandoned (this is a good thing!)
2. A lot of families in the Russia program switched to China when the Russian Gov. put a halt on their adoptions. Also, many new families have been drawn to China because of it's stability. Consequently, there was a huge increase in the number of families logged in over the past year as compared to other years.
3. The baby scandal in the Hunan Province basically shut down non-special needs adoptions from that province for 4.5 months. Since roughly 25% of the babies adopted internationally have historically come from Hunan, this made a huge impact. More families, less babies = longer wait
4. China is doing what it can to encourage domestic adoption in China. Once again, this is a good thing...

I know it will all be worth the wait when we have our daughter in our arms. And I've been doing good with the wait so far. We have 6 months of waiting under our belts so far, and they've gone by relatively fast. My biggest problem right now is that it is hard for me to see the end to this wait because it is unknown. If I knew for sure our wait would be over in exactly one year, I could deal with that. It's the not knowing that's driving me crazy. I feel foolish buying baby clothes and setting up a nursery not knowing when we'll have a baby girl to put in it, yet I long to do it because it makes me still feel like an expectant mom. Does that make any sense whatsoever?

I'll most likely be 35 when we get our daughter. That's the same age my mom was when she had me. Of course, she got pregnant after one month of trying and after being married less than 2 years. We've been married over 11 years and have been trying for over 4. My patience is running out and I'm sprouting gray hairs left and right.

To all my sisters in waiting, be strong. It will happen. Eventually. Right?