Growing Snowflowers

Why is the wait so much longer???

When we applied to adopt a child from China in late 2004, the time from your paperwork being logged in at the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) to the time of a referral was approximately six months. Our papers were logged in on February 21, 2005 and six and a half months later we received our first photo and information about our new daughter.

This time around things are different, very very different. Not only have the wait times increased dramatically, but there is very little we know about whether they will improve or continue to get worse. The current wait for families from 'log in' until referral is 19 months, almost three times what it was in September 2005! In fact families with November 2005 log in's are yet to receive their referrals, this is indeed disappointing and immeasurably sad. Families are looking at potential waits rumored at 3-4 years!

There are facts, speculations and rumors as to why this is happening, we choose to believe the information that we hear about from our agency CCAI which has a very good relationship with the CCAA.

From what we understand, there are still many many thousands of children in orphanages in China, and abandonments occur at a regular pace with only slight fluctuation from year to year, what does seem to be the 'issue' is that the Orphanage Directors are not submitting paper ready children to the CCAA at the same rate, hence the dramatic slowdown.

Now, why do you think they would do this? Doesn't China want to help the orphans find families? Help relieve the stress on the social system? Of course they do, but for the last 15 years the orphanage 'child rearing fee' that families are required to pay the orphanage has been a very manageable $3000USD. Yes, that's right, just $3000. While other fees in the past 15 years have soared, mainly for home studies, USCIS and background fees (most on the American side), the China fees that are paid to an orphanage to help defray the costs of feeding, clothing and caring for an orphan have remained the same. I'm certainly not the person to say "hey lets increase prices", because for one, it's already a huge financial strain on most families to even consider adoption, as it is for ours. What I do think should happen is a gradual increase over the next few years to help the already strained orphanage system prepare the time consuming paperwork that is required by the CCAA to make a child 'available' for International Adoption.

Let me tell you one important thing; We have the utmost respect for our adoption agency CCAI, we can't thank them enough for walking us through this process the first, and now second time. Our agency quietly admits to one of the lowest agency fees for China adoption in the nation, while also maintaining incredibly low operating costs and an enviable Children's Cultural Center and Charity foundation. For these reasons we are not just clients of CCAI, but we are FAMILY members who will continue to support the wonderful work that the owner/founders Josh & Lily do to help Chinese children find forever families. They are our daughters hero's!

and still there's more....

We decided early on in the process of adopting a second child that we would be open to a child with a known medical condition, in the world of International Adoption these children are referred to as 'waiting children'. We filled out our medical conditions checklist in early January, soon after our official log in date, we were not motivated by the fact that we could see a match within the year, but more so by a desire to open our arms, heart and home to a child who would be 'overlooked' by the traditional or NSN (non special needs) program. We spent a lot of time researching the medical conditions on the list, and by the end of January we submitted our list of what we feel we can honor as a family, emotionally, physically, financially as well as what resources our local area offered.

We as a family feel extremely privileged to have adopted from China, we are parents of a smart, funny and articulate little girl who has a bright future ahead of her.

The Waiting Child program works a little differently that the traditional program, and again,this differs from agency to agency. In the traditional program, officials at the CCAA in China actually 'match' you with a child (and I must say from personal experience they do a very nice job!), whereas in the WC program, each individual agency in the US periodically receives 'lists' of waiting children, the team then translates all the information and tries to 'match' the children with a family, see, it's almost the same, just done on this side of the world. At our agency, the average match time is 8-10 months from the time you submitted your medical conditions checklist, we are at 5.5 months, so there is a slight chance we could receive a match by the end of the year. The process is a little more complicated beyond that point, and it could take several more months than the traditional referral-travel time line, but many families will travel within six months of match to get their children.

I know, this post was a long one, and you are all probably yawning...we just wanted to open up the discussion for those who were interested in knowing what the 'process' is like. Adoption is not easy, it is not fast, it is not inexpensive...it is AMAZING, BEAUTIFUL, MEANINGFUL, and it is PERFECT for our family.