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.

Review Room vs Matching Room

It has been a while since we have heard anything about the progress of the review room. Since the CCAA doesn't provide updates to the public via their website anymore, we have to rely on our agencies who get the info through a private site. A bunch of agencies have notified their clients that the CCAA has updated their site and have reviewed dossiers for families with Log In Dates through December 31, 2006. I posted a chart a while back that compares how many months families have waited to get through review and how many months families have waited to get a referral and have updated it below with the latest data. As we all know the Matching Room is creeping up every month with families receiving referrals this month waiting around 27 months. The Review Room seems to have hovered around 15 months for the past year. Families with Log In Dates in November 2006 waited a little longer and the wait for the December 2006 families is back down to just over 15 months.

Comparing The Years - April Edition

So another month of referrals has come and gone and it was another disappointing number of days referred. The CCAA referred up to January 9th, so only five days were referred this month. Two of those days were on a weekend with very few people logged in so that makes the batch appear larger than it is. The average number of days referred per month for the past year is still hovering around 6 days. See the chart below for the number of days referred per month back to May 2006.

If we overlay the above chart by year (see below) the similar yearly trend continues to present itself. Most glaring is the month of April which has had a lower number of days referred for the past 2 years. In April 2007 we saw 2 days referred and in April 2006 we saw 5 days referred. So this year appears better than last year but if you factor in the weekend probably not much better. The good news is that the number of days referred in the past has seemed to pick up a little bit after April. According to the online polls the next couple days are pretty big so most waiting parents are expecting another small batch. More potential good news to look forward to is that the end of January 2006 has a span of 9 days with no or very few families logged in. So when the CCAA gets to referring those days we should see a larger batch than we have seen in a very long time. Possibly 10 or more days.

Comparing The Years - March Edition

Referrals started arriving today confirming that the cutoff is January 4th. That means they referred 8 days, the same amount as last month. Last March was the last month that they referred over 10 days. So for the past year the number of days referred per month has settled in at an average of 6 days. See the chart below for the number of days referred per month back to May 2005.

If we overlay each calendar year in the above chart (see below) the trend for 2008 so far is well below the similar trends for 2006 ands 2007. The scary data point on this chart is April (the next batch). For the last two years the April batch has been significantly smaller than the other months. In April 2006 we saw 5 days referred and in April 2007 we saw 2 days referred. I hate to use this chart to make predictions since we don't know why the April batch had been so small the past two years but if the trend continues we could be in for a smaller batch next month. It could just be a coincidence or maybe there is a valid reason that the April batch has been small. If we do see a significantly smaller batch next month then there has to be something to it, only time will tell. With a LID of 1/5/2006 we are pretty confident that we will be in next month but if our LID were further out I would not be so sure.

Someone asked me last month if I plan to continue updating these charts every month after we get our referral. I do plan on keeping up with them but if we get too busy once we are home with baby I may look to hand them off to another waiting family to update and post. If you are good with numbers and Excel and it is something you might be interested in let me know.

Comparing the Years - February Edition

I usually wait until the cutoff is official before I update and post my monthly referral charts but since the CCAA is no longer updating their website I guess we are now as official as we are going to get. There have been a few families with LIDs of 12/27/2005 reporting referrals so that is 8 days which is a pretty significant sized batch. Looking at the chart below there was an 8 day batch in November 2007 but that batch included a couple days with very few families logged in because of the Christmas holiday so that 8 day batch may have been a bit inflated. The last time the CCAA referred more than 8 days was back in March 2007 which was an 11 Day batch.

Interestingly, if we overlay the above chart by year (see below) we see a similar trend for 2006 and 2007. In 2007 we started out pretty similar to 2006 but then the 2006 numbers started to drop to about half, which seems to be pretty consistent with this year so far as well. Last year the numbers dropped from February to March, as did the year before. I hate to make any predictions based on these charts but there is something here regarding the trends so read into them as you wish. Hopefully since the numbers are so low this year we won't see a significant drop, maybe even a slight upswing which we are really hoping for with a LID of 1/5/2006. I guess as they say in the financial industry "Past performance does not guarantee future results". But we can all hope.

The Backlog

One of the readers of this blog asked if I had done any analysis on the CCAA's progress of the Review Room vs. the Matching Room. We got through the review room back in November 2006, which was about 10 months after our Log in Date. The people who last got through the review room waited about 14 months after their Log In Date. So comparing that to the last group that got matched who waited over 24 months, the matching room is staying pretty consistent. Dates are kind of hard to graph in Excel so I charted out the number of months since LID that each group has waited to get through the Matching Room and the Review Room. The Review Room backlog seems to be leveling out. Probably safe to assume if you haven't made it through review yet your wait to be reviewed will be around 14 months. The Matching Room Backlog is growing pretty consistently each month and unfortunately will almost definitely continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

Comparing the Years - January Edition

The CCAA just released another small batch of referrals. Not the smallest batch ever in terms of Log In Days but still smaller than expected as December was supposed to be a smaller month and the 5 days referred were believed to be smaller days. Below is an updated chart back to 2005 showing the number if days per month.




If you overlay the years on the above chart (see below), last year's January numbers were overall a bit higher and then trended down through April. In 2006 the numbers went up in February and then trended down through April. Not sure how much lower they can go from where they are now. But we have seen a couple 5 day batches, a 4 day batch and a 2 day batch so based on the trends we could see a smaller batch next month. December is also thought to be a relatively large day so just one more reason to think we may be in for a couple slow months.

Comparing the Years

A few months back I started charting out the number of days that the CCAA was referring each month and comparing with the number of days referred each month last year. I noticed a trend that a similar number of days were being referred for the same month last year. Below is a chart of the number of days referred per month back to May 2005. The downward trend that we are have been experiencing can easily be seen. I can't find the numbers anywhere for the months prior to May 2005 but from what I remember they were referring full months back then which is why the wait time was as low as 6 months. If anyone knows where to find the number of days referred per month prior to May 2005 let me know.


If we break out the years and overlay them we can see where the trend was similar and where it diverted. The number of days referred per month was eerily close for Oct 2006 through May of this year. After May we started to see some separation but comparing this year to last year we still seem to see the same upward and downward trend. I am not really sure what it all means but there is definitely something to it. It could be all a coincidence or we could be seeing the results of some unknown factors in China that affect how many babies are allowed to be adopted at certain times of the year.

More Numbers

There was in interesting article in the Boston Globe this morning about the decline of foreign adoptions by Americans. You can read the full article here.

A key point in the article is the numbers released by the US State Department on the Number of US Visas released to Chinese orphans. This number is really just the number of children adopted by Americans from China last year. The article states:

Adoptions from China, the number one source country since 2000, fell to 5,453.
That is down by 1,040 from last year and well off the peak of 7,906 in 2005.

So we have:

2007 - 5453
2006 - 6493
2005 - 7906

That is 16% less adoptions from China this year than last year. The difference between 2006 and 2005 was a 17.8 % decrease. We all knew that these numbers were decreasing but it there is so much speculation out there it is nice to see concrete numbers sometimes. The State department numbers for previous years can be found here .

Update:

I also charted out the number of visas issued per year back to 1991. This info is also from the state dept. website. There have been a couple down years in the past but never two down years in a row. As always a picture says a thousand words.

Another Update:

I was looking some more at the State Department numbers and I found another page that lists the numbers of orphan visas by country back to 1990. I thought it would be interesting to see this charted out as well. I charted the top 9 countries by year and then added the rest in as "Other" to get the total. Interesting to see how things have changed historically. Overall the trend for international adoptions to the US is down for the last two years. There is so much data I could run analysis against it all day but I think this is enough for now.

Days Referred This Year vs. Last Year

Another 8 days referred this month which interestingly is half of the number of days that they referred last year at this time. I updated my chart comparing the number of days referred this year to the number of days referred last year. If you look at the chart for the first 4 months things were pretty comparable. Then at the end of March we had that first small batch and things seemed to go downhill from there. Going forward the number of days referred was usually half or less the number of days referred from the previous year. Thinking we can probably expect more of the same going forward.

Just 5 days?

Nothing offical yet from the CCAA since they are off on holiday but some agencies are reporting getting referrals for Log In Dates through November 30th. It looks very much like November 30th is the cutoff date this month. This is quite a disappointment. We haven't heard anything from our agency yet, probably because they don't have anyone with a Log In Date between November 26th and 30th. We were really hoping to see more days this month since the end of November had comparably fewer families with Log in Dates. I expect we will probably see a similar number of days referred next month. Seems to be the new standard operating procedure at the CCAA. I am going to post my chart again that compares the number of days referred last year to this year but the trend is definitely off this month but it really highlights how much things have slowed down since last year. I am posting this with the assumption that they did get through just 5 days. Since the CCAA is on holiday they probably won't get around to confirming it and updating their website until next week. If they did get further I will come back and update this with the proper numbers.




Click on above pic to see a clearer version

Comparing The Years - September Edition

I have updated my chart that compares days referred per month this year to last year. Interestingly, the September batch last year also seemed to trend down a bit. The good news is the October and November batches last year were pretty big so if the chart continues to trend similarly going forward we could be in for some bigger batches. The online polls seem to point to December being smaller than November so I think it is safe to say we can expect some double digit number of days referred in the upcoming months. The updated chart is below.

Comparing The Years - August Edition

Wow, this is my third update of this website this week. A lot going on. Referrals arrived today. Our agency emailed us this morning that they received 7 referrals. Nothing official from the CCAA yet but it looks like they got through November 21st which is 7 days. That is pretty much what we expected. I have been keeping a monthly running chart of the number of days referred this year vs. last year. Earlier in the year the chart was trending extremely close but the last couple months the current year seems to be pretty level at 6-7 days. I think though if we look forward to next month the trend last year dips down again and referrals next month are expected to be down as well because November 22 is a very big day. So I think it will be interesting to continue watching the trend on the chart to see what happens. The good news is last year the October batch of referrals bounced back up to 18 days so there is a little hope that things again may pick up a little once we get into October. See the updated chart below.

Comparing The Years - July Edition

It appears that referrals have begun arriving on the west coast and cover Log In Dates though November 14th. Nothing official about the cutoff yet from the CCAA or our agency. I assume our agency will get referrals sometime tomorrow. The last few months I have posted a chart with number of days referred each month this year compared to last year. Earlier in the year there seemed to be a pretty visible trend with the two years being pretty close together. The two years don't seem to be trending as closely the last couple months but at least the chart is still trending up in general. Last year in late June/July, 13 days were referred and we are only expecting 7 days this month. Last year in late July/August, 15 days were referred and I really don't expect them to refer more than 7 days again next month as they would need to get through November 22 which is thought to be a really big day. Nevertheless I am posting the updated chart in hopes that things pick back up in the upcoming months. Which I think is a pretty good possibility once they get through November.

Projected Wait Time

No news yet on the next batch of referrals. There was a rumor floating around last week that the upcoming batch would cover Log In Dates through November 17th. Later in the week another rumor came around that someone with a Log In Date of November 17th was told by their agency that they would not be included in the latest batch. Referrals through November 17th would be 10 days which is significantly more that we have seen in the last couple of batches. At this point I think it is pretty unlikely that referrals will go through the 17th but I would love to be wrong. We are at least hoping to see a more than the six days we have seen in the past few batches. Jen was away this weekend and I had some free time to look at some of the historical numbers of the wait times and compare it to the time we have been waiting. I charted the data in Excel and the results are pretty interesting. The blue line represents the number of months we have waited. The pink line represents the maximum number of months that people who received referrals in the latest batch have waited. As you can see the lines are slowly coming together. I drew a yellow line over the angle of latest batch max wait time and projected the line of our wait time out until they intersect. This intersection is at December 2007 which in theory is when the data projects us to get a referral. Maybe a little hope that we could get a picture of Grace by Christmas.

Comparing The Years - June Edition

We got an email from our agency this afternoon that referrals have arrived and covered Log In Dates through 11/7/2005. They received 8 referrals this month, 7 girls and one boy. The CCAA still hasn't updated their website but we are pretty sure that 11/7 is the cutoff as other agencies are reporting it as well. So this means that they did 6 days of referrals again this month. Not the increase that we were hoping for but at least it is not less days. Last month I posted a table comparing the number of days referred last year to the number of days referred this year. There appears to be a trend over the past 8 months although there are a few anomalies here and there, this month being one of them. I do think it is worthwhile though to keep an eye on it in hopes that the upward trend from last year continues into this year. Although based on the number of Log in Dates thought to be in the rest of November I fear we will continue to see a few more small batches. I have created a chart for those that are more visual that paints a pretty interesting picture.

Comparing The Years - May Edition

We got an email from our agency that referrals came in today. They only got three referrals this time for for Log in Dates through October 31st. Rumors are that the CCAA has referred through November 1st, although they have not updated their website yet so we don't know for sure. If this is true it means that they got through 6 days which is definitely better than the 2 they did last month but still is not a lot. They still have to get through 65 more days to get to our Log in Date of January 5, 2006. I posted a chart last month comparing referrals last year to this year that seems to show that the number of Log In Dates referred this year is trending very close to last year. The number of days referred this month is again very close (off by one day). So if the trend continues the number of days referred should increase over the next few months. I updated the chart and added in the next couple batches from last year to project out what things could potentially look like if the trend continues.

Comparing The Years

This past Thursday marked 15 months since our Log In date. Referrals didn't arrive last week as we expected. They are expected to arrive early this week but we may be in for some bad news. Rumors are that they only referred 2 days worth of Log In Dates. We haven't heard anything official from our agency or the CCAA but it is looking like it may be true. If it is true we hope it is just an anomaly this month but it will most likely push us out to traveling in 2008. I compiled an interesting table below that starts with the first date that they started referring less than a month, which is when the slowdown in referrals started. I compared the number of days referred last year to this year and interestingly every month except January has very similar number of days referred. It really slowed down on the March 2006 referral date when they only referred 5 days. This corresponds to this next referral batch which may be for only 2 days. This probably is all just coincidental but if last year's pattern continues this year we could be in for a couple months of small batches of referrals.