Why can't we adopt a newborn/infant from China?

Not much new adoption stuff going on lately and I just realized that I haven't posted any updates lately so I will answer another question....

Why can't we adopt a newborn/infant from China?

The youngest babies that we have seen at referral seem to be around 5 to 6 months old. Add two months to that to get our travel approval and the youngest she will be is 7 - 8 months. We are on the young side so I expect that we will be referred a younger baby, although there is no guarantee. We requested a 6 - 12 month old or as young as possible. The reason why we can not get a baby any younger has to do with the process China has to go through to consider the babies abandoned and available for adoption. When a baby is abandoned and taken into an orphanage a finding ad is placed in a local newspaper. This is just a picture and a description of the baby and where she was found. This is so the birthparents can re-claim the baby if they wish to. I doubt that this happens very often though as it is illegal to abandon babies. If the baby is not reclaimed within a certain number of months then the baby is considered abandoned and is available to be adopted. The babies are checked over for health issues and paperwork is processed and by this time the baby is about 5 -6 months old.