Comparing The Years - May 2008

Referrals started arriving on Friday and it looks like the cutoff is January 12th. So this is another disappointing batch with just three days referred. The average number of days referred over the past year is exactly 6 days. The chart below shows the number of days referred per month back to May 2005.

If we overlay the above chart by year (see below) the upward trend that we have seen in May the past two years did not happen. Although based on the online polls I would expect to see a bigger batch next month. Overall though I would expect to see more of the same for the next few months until they start referring the days around the end of January 2006. There are very few people logged in those days because of the Chinese New Year holiday so we will probably see one big batch of around 10 days followed by a few very small batches.

The next couple months should be interesting. With the Olympics starting in August there is still no clear consensus with what is going to happen with adoptions during that time. Some agencies are telling their clients that everything will continue on as normal just no travel to Beijing during the Olympics. Other agencies are telling their clients that there will be no travel during August. Some agencies are even staying that travel approvals and referrals will be affected in the months surrounding the Olympics. I think it is safe to say that the Olympics will have some effect but since the CCAA has not given official word we still don't know how it will affect the waiting parents. Luckily for us we will be there and back before the Olympics starts but we really feel for all of the waiting parents who will be affected by it.