Misfiled. . .

Our adoption agency called today with an explanation for why we did not receive our referral on Monday. All dossiers go through a review process and then are either approved or rejected based on the information submitted. The dossiers for our LID were probably in review during the spring of 2007 and, because of my medical history, ours was pulled and China requested additional medical information from my doctor. The information was submitted and ultimately we were approved to adopt. Our dossier should have been refiled with the other 4/5/06 dossiers, but, unfortunately, it was put in the wrong slot. So when the 4/5/06 batch came up for matching, ours wasn’t part of the group. Now, my thought is that China would say “Oops, we messed up. We’ll just match you right now and send your referral off tomorrow (or at least in the next few days).” But that’s not to be. The good news is they did find our dossier; the bad news is they will just include it with the next batch of referrals. It is unknown when the next batch will come out ~ maybe sometime in March, or even April. So we continue to wait and hope that nothing else goes wrong in the process. Thanks to everyone for your words of encouragement, especially during these past few days. We are so fortunate to have such great friends and family.
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” Ecc. 3:1 (NIV)

You've got to be kidding...

It has been an interesting two days. Monday morning, after getting my coffee, I decided to check an adoption message board/website that seems to have referral information before anyone else. Imagine my surprise when I saw that agencies in Europe were announcing that China had finished a batch of referrals through April 5, 2006. This was our date! As the morning progressed, several people in the US started reporting that they had received calls from their agency with a referral and were posting pictures of their babies. I knew our call would be coming soon and we would finally get information about our new daughter. Well, the call came about noon, but not with the information we were hoping for. Our agency did receive a package of referrals for the 4/5/06 LID, but ours was not included. They don’t know why and are checking into it. We were hoping to have an explanation today but, as of 5pm CST, they had not heard back from China. So maybe tomorrow we’ll know something. We are so disappointed and frustrated, and even a little sad. Please pray that this was a minor glitch and we will have our referral this week. We’ll keep you posted.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our first child from China (LID 4/5/06). We are creating this site so our friends and family can follow our journey to bring her home. You'll notice I said "her." We have requested a little girl and have yet to choose a name, although we have a long list of possibilities!

The process for adopting from China begins with submitting a dossier to the Chinese governmental agency (CCAA) which approves and processes all adoptions. When they receive a dossier they assign it a log-in date (LID) and everything going forward happens based on a person's LID - approval of the request to adopt and, eventually, the referral. China announced on 10/13/09 that they had processed referrals through 3/28/06. This means they have contacted the US adoption agencies who have submitted dossiers for their clients and the agencies have received pictures and health information on the childen assigned to each family. This is a very exciting day as it is the first time that they will "meet" their child. Once the family accepts the referral, they will begin the process of receiving their dates of travel to China to bring their child home. CCAA updates agencies on a monthly basis. The 3/28/06 announcement included 4 days worth of dossiers. The current wait time for new applicantions to China is about 4 years until referral. When we first started the process the wait time was 12-15 months.

Thank you so very much for following our journey. We appreciate the prayers and words of encouragement from our family and friends over the many months of our wait and hope to introduce you to our daughter within the next couple of months.