Referral Rumor

The big news today is that the STORK is supposedly on his way across the sea.....carrying what I hope is a REALLY heavy load of babies to their forever families. It will most likely be Monday before we will know for sure. This referral is matching those with LID's of 10-25-05 through ??? hoefully sometime in November of 2005. Yes, 2005. Now you see why our wait is like an elephant's pregnancy. It is so exciting seeing referral pictures on the blogs! Referrals come out about every 4 weeks. The CCAA used to be able to match a whole month of dossiers at a time and wait times were 6-8 months after LID. More and more people signed up for China adoption and last year the CCAA was only able to get through 5 months worth of dossiers. Now if that meant there weren't babies in orphanages waiting for homes, it would be okay. Personally, I don't think that is the case. Not enough orphanages participate in the IA program (International Adoption), not enough babies are "paper ready" for adoption, and, IMHO, it is probably a staffing issue; not enough people to process the dossiers. Below I will post a couple of orphanage photos. Please understand that the ayis (aunties or nannies) do the best that they can with the resources they have available. I have never heard anything but stories of their love for these babies. Yes, they sleep on slats of wood...they do not always use diapers there so it is much easier to clean-up than a mattress would be. In China they really (and I mean REALLY)bundle their children up to keep them warm and healthy....many places are without heat and the children are bundled so much that they can no longer move their arms freely! Anyway, here you go:


A Foster Mom Saying Good-bye?

See how clean the floor is? And All Warm and Toasty!