Good News, Bad News

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Wow. What a week. As the title suggests, this week has been a little a little bit of a roller coaster all on its on.

Good News: The CCAA has posted that August LIDs have passed through the review room. One would surmise that they are now moving into the match room.

September LIDS have been in the review room for several weeks it appears, so they will probably be through reviewing those soon. (that's us)

CCAI has placed 44 of the waiting children on the January list. How fabulous, for children who were not considered adoptable in the regular program to now have families. Warms my cockles, girls! (whatever a cockle is) We are still hoping to find our baby on the next waiting child list which is due in April. Jimmy and I have done a lot of soul searching and we feel drawn to a waiting child, but we are very realistic about the types of problems we feel equipped to handle. Hopefully, there will be some younger babies with minor needs on the next list, and hopefully we will find Amelia there!

CCAA has sent out the next batch of referrals, and they should be here early next week.

Congratulations to all the new families!

Now for the bad news:

Even though the referral packages have been smaller this last several months (hence the slow down--we were originally due a referral THIS month) they have usually included 10 to 15 days of log in dates.

Several agencies have indicated the cut off date this time to be either 5/30 or 5/31---a mere 5 or 6 days worth of log ins. Needless to say, we are ALL crushed.

You know, I don't know what to think at this point. CCAI is still estimating "approx. 10 month wait from LID to referral" on their web site, but some Swedish agencies are reportedly telling their NEW folks that the wait my stretch to 18 months! Unbelievable. I don't normally whine, but I cant help just a teeny one here: it is so our luck to start our application right on the cusp of this slow down! For a couple of years prior to that, the referrals were coming at 6 months like clockwork! And a couple people have reported that they received there referrals a mere 5.5 months after LID.

The bottom line is, China could start sending out bigger batches next month, or the next, or the next, or never. We don't have any way to predict what is coming. July is 10 months for us, but if they keep sending out batches this small, it may be December, January, February, who knows?

There are lots of things that could contribute to this slowdown, and I'm going to do a post about my theories on that (nothing earthshaking.........Just a compilation of possible reasons--for those not in adoption circles)

But I don't have time right now, because I am going nursery fabric shopping with some local China moms, and then for lunch and Margaritas. One of those moms has a log in of June 3rd, and we are all CRUSHED that she didn't make this cut off!!!!!!!

But that's ok, because SURELY she's really NEXT this time, and we'll soothe our souls today with a few laughs, good food, good drinks, and some really good friends.