19 Months

Yesterday was 19 months since our Log in Date and just over 2 years since we officially started the process. We have just about 6 more weeks of Log in Dates in front of us. If they were to continue to do 7 days of referrals per month that would mean we would have 6 more months to wait for a referral. Probably a pretty good estimate although we have been thinking we have 6 more months to wait since we started the process. Eventually though we have to start getting closer. The CCAA also updated their website to confirm that November 21st was the cutoff this month.

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.

6 Years

Vacations are always way too short. Jen and I had a very relaxing vacation last week and we even got a bunch of stuff done around the house. We got a new computer and a new desk for the office. We didn't pay much attention to the Chinese Adoption rumor boards which was kind of refreshing. I did take a quick look earlier tonight and it doesn't look like there are any new rumors out there. There is a chance that referrals could arrive this week though. We are not expecting more than 7 days to be referred though, that would bring us to November 21st. But there is a fairly good chance that they won't even get that far. Jen and I also celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary on Saturday. We went out for dinner at a local Italian restaurant. Every year on our anniversary we buy each other the traditional anniversary presents, the 6th year is candy so I got Jen a box of chocolates. We decided that since we were buying a new computer and desk we would keep the gifts small this year but I always cheat. So I sneaked a diamond anniversary band into the box of chocolates. Jen had been wanting an anniversary band for a while but she really wasn't expecting it so it was quite a surprise for her. Here are some pictures of the ring....

Grace's Nursery

We finally have the nursery pretty much finished. There are still a couple empty walls but I think we are going to bring some things back from China to fill them up. We started working on this room a few years ago when we first started thinking about starting a family. We had just painted it and put up the chair rail though, the room has been pretty much empty since. Jen usually makes all of the decorating decisions around here because, well, I have no decorating sense whatsoever. The room doesn't really have a theme, Jen just wanted it to be very feminine but not too pepto bismol pink, which probably would have been my choice So on with the tour...

We bought (well Jen's parents bought the crib) the bedroom set last summer during the tax free holiday in anticipation of having Gracie home this fall. Teddy will just have to hold down the fort until she gets here. The crib bedding set is called paper dolls. The little white man next to the changing table is a diaper genie for those who haven't seen one. Looks like a little robot, too bad it doesn't actually change the baby.

More dresses and loot. Jen has a lot of time on her hands, she actually arranged them according to size. Next week, she'll redo it according to color!!

My Aunt Barbara made this framed needlepoint. Kind of hard to read with the glare in the picture. It says "You have been chosen to be our precious Grace".

Grace isn't even home yet and she already has a small library. Plenty of books to read before bedtime.

Who says a baby can't have a chandelier in her room?

Jen's friend Sue sent us these great letters from Pottery Barn Kids so Grace can have her name on her wall. And a picture of the rug from Pottery Barn Kids.

Lucy doesn't seem to appreciate being read to. How else are we supposed to practice for Grace?

Rumors and Vacation Fun

The rumors about the next batch of referrals started flying around last week. There was a ridiculous rumor early in the week that they were going to make it into December and then another rumor later in the week that they were only going to get through 6 days. It is way too early in the month to believe any of these rumors. We will most likely be waiting another week or two for the next batch to arrive. As the time gets closer the rumors tend to get more accurate so we will wait until then to believe anything we hear. In other news we are on vacation this week. More accurately, I am on vacation this week. Jen, as a teacher, has the summer off so she has been on vacation for a while. We had an interesting start to my vacation when I went out into the back yard to mow the lawn Saturday morning and found this:



A huge branch broke off one of our oak trees and fell on my shed. Kind of a rocky start to vacation but at least I got to have some fun playing with my chainsaw. On Sunday we went up to the beach for the night and found a cool little bar in Rye, NH and listened to some live Reggae. Kind of brought us back to Jamaica a little bit, except we were drinking Sam Summer rather than Red Stripe and Pina Coladas. We don't really have any plans for the rest of the week except a little home office upgrade. Our current computer is over 7 years old and is so slow we are ready to throw it out the window, so we are planning to go shopping for a new one at some point this week. We are also planning to buy a notebook computer so that we can keep in touch with family and friends while we are in China and also so we can update this website. The notebook purchase will probably be a little while down the road but we are going to need more workspace in the office so we are planning to shop for a new desk as well with room for both of us to work at. Shopping isn't exactly my idea of a fun vacation but at least we will be shopping for technology, a little more fun than clothes shopping. Lastly, on Saturday we will be celebrating our 6 year wedding anniversary so we have a special night planned for that.

Forever Lily - An Unexpected Mother's Journey to Adoption in China

Forever Lily - An Unexpected Mother's Journey to Adoption in China

by Beth Nonte Russel

Forever Lily is the story of a woman who travels to China with a friend who is planning to adopt a baby. When they get to China the baby is younger than what the woman expects and she is failing to bond with the baby so she decides she may not want to adopt the baby. Her friend asks the author if she would be willing to adopt the baby. Her friend really distanced herself from the baby. The author, however, finds herself bonding more and more to her and sees herself parenting the child. This feeling is confirmed when she calls home to tell her husband that her friend may not be bringing home the baby and he instanly says that they will adopt her. Although this is a bad situation that finds a happy ending with Russel and her husband adopting Lily, and ultimately a second daughter from China, it's not much of a feel good book. The author recalls long dream sequences where she sees herself as a Chinese woman from centuries ago who was the mother of this baby in another life. The dream sequences are distracting and not believable. We didn't really care for how she portrayed China, its culture and its people in general. Also, we had a hard time sympathizing with the woman who changed her mind. With all that we have gone through to prepare for our adoption we find her cavalier attitude towards the baby, and adoption itself, unsettling. Of course, nobody would want a woman to parent a child she didn't feel she could. However, we feel she took the seriousness of adoption too lightly.

Brown Envelope #2

I usually try to update this site at least once a week. Sometimes when there is nothing going on with the adoption I will write about something new that is going on with us in our personal lives. Not much happened last week so I was feeling a bit guilty that I had nothing to write about. Then we got some surprise mail from China this afternoon. Nothing real exciting like referrals or anything, just a new Brown Envelope. We got our first Brown Envelope back in April 2006. The Brown envelope contains some documents that we will need to fill out for the US Consulate in Guangzhou China to finalize the adoption. When we applied for Department of Homeland Security approval they notify the Consulate who then sends us the envelope. Since the Department of Homeland Security approval is only valid for 18 months we needed to reapply so we got another envelope. On our second Dept. of Homeland Security approval we noticed that they had the number of our street address wrong. The address on the Brown Envelope was wrong as well so I am a little surprised that it got to us. We emailed the director of our agency about the address and she told us not to worry about it so we are trusting her. We just hope the mistake doesn't come back an bite us in the butt while we are in China. We had been kind of feeling like nothing was going on with the adoption lately so it was nice to get something to remind us that we are still in it.

100 Good Wishes Quilt

What is a 100 Good Wishes Quilt?

To welcome and celebrate a new life, there is a tradition in the northern part of China to make a Bai Jia Bei, or 100 Good Wishes Quilt. It is a custom to invite friends and family to contribute a patch of cloth with a wish for the baby. Part of the patch of cloth goes into the quilt for the baby, and the other part of the cloth can go into a creative memory notebook with the wish for the child. The quilt contains the luck, energy, and good wishes from all the families and friends who contributed a piece of fabric. The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation.
Some of the people in our DTC group are doing a 100 good wishes quilt so we thought this is something that our friends and family would like to contribute to. It is a tradition to greet the new baby with a 100 Good Wishes Quilt. Although this is a Chinese tradition, it is a great tradition for any child to be welcomed this way. What a treat to read the good wishes when the child is older to know how much she was wanted!

** I found this description on a quilting website and the English teacher in Jen made me cite my source so this is not my original writing



Note From Jen:
I finished Grace’s 100 Good Wishes Quilt. I didn’t have exactly 100 wishes but I did incorporate 90 quilt squares. The making of the quilt was definitely hard work since I am such a novice. Quilt making is all about math and that’s not my strongest area so I had to fudge it a bit! However, I am glad that I was able to do this all on my own for Gracie. The quilt is far from perfect—there are lots of mistakes and uneven edges. Yet, I see every imperfection as not just a mistake but proof of perseverance when the going gets tough. The quilt may have flaws but it’s made with love and it will keep her warm in her forever family.
Thank you to all who contributed squares for Grace's quilt. I appreciate it and look forward to the day that I can sit down with Grace and show her her Book of Wishes and who gave her every square.

CCAA July Update

We got an email from our agency on Friday that referrals arrived. They received referrals for 6 families, all girls. The interesting note in their email was the referrals were from orphanages recently opened by the CCAA. When the CCAA visited the US we heard rumors that they were trying to get more orphanages opened to international adoption. Maybe having more orphanages open will get more babies into homes and cut down the wait time a little bit. Last week we also passed 18 months since our Log In Date. The group that just got their referrals waited just under 20 months, I wish we could say we were two months away but almost an additional month gets tacked on as each month goes by so it seems like it is one step forward and one step back. We are inching closer though. The CCAA did update their website confirming that 11/14/2005 was the cutoff for the last batch of referrals. The update is 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.

CCAA Visit To the US

Apparently the China Center for Adoption Affairs was visiting adoption agencies in the US last week. Our agency mentioned something about it in their last monthly update but we haven't heard anything from them about it from them yet. The purpose of the meeting seemed to be for the CCAA to see how the children are getting along in their new families. But some agencies seem to have allowed some waiting families to attend the meetings. It doesn't sound like they were allowed to ask them any questions about the wait directly but some interesting information did come out of the meetings. This information has been making its way around the China adoption forums and Rumor boards....

• The wait times are going to continue to increase and could reach 3 years. I think we know at this point that the wait is going to continue to increase unless they start referring full months again. I don't think we will have to wait 3 years but will most likely have to wait at least 2 years in total.


• The CCAA received 30,000 dossiers in 2006 and 10,000 dossiers through May of 2007. To calculate how many total families are waiting for a referral we would need to add in the last two months in 2005. Assuming they received about the same number per month in 2005 that is about 2,500 dossiers per month. So that comes out to about 45,000 families waiting for a referral.


• The CCAA is currently referring 600 to 700 babies per month. So if we figure they got 2,500 dossiers a month in 2005 and they need to get through 2 months worth of referrals to get to us that is around 5000 families in front of us if they refer 600 babies a month that means it should take about 7 months for us to get a referral.


• Abandonment of children in China is decreasing. This is definitely a good thing for the children but is one of the factors that has added to the increased wait time. It makes sense that as the Chinese economy grows and strengthens and more of the people are lifted out of poverty there will be less abandonments. Seems you can't read a newspaper lately without seeing an article about the changes occurring in China.


• Domestic adoption in China is increasing, only 1 out of 5 of every adoptions is international. When we started researching Chinese adoption we read that one of the reasons that there were so many babies available for adoption in China was because the Chinese did not like to adopt. Apparently China has been encouraging their citizens to adopt. With a population of 1.3 billion there must be many childless couples to adopt these children. I think this has something to do with the Hague convention for adoptions that China is implementing. The basis for adoptions for the Hague is that children should be kept with their birth families. If that is not possible they should be adopted domestically and only adopted out internationally as the last resort.


• The CCAA is trying to get more orphanages to submit babies files for adoption but it seems that the orphanages may not have the resources. The incentive for the orphanages to submit paperwork is the $3,000 fee that we pay to them. But if they can adopt these babies domestically without having to prepare as much paperwork that is probably what they are doing. There is also talk of increasing the fee to get more orphanages to submit their paperwork, although I am not sure that is the right thing to do if the babies can be placed domestically. Although if there are babies that are not being placed domestically and they are just sitting in orphanages we would be more that willing to pay an increased fee to help them get the paperwork going.


• The CCAA is committed to the International Adoption program, they say to have patience and we will get a baby. To be honest there have been times throughout this process that Jen and I have gotten so numb and truly felt that we will never get a child. It is nice to know that China is committed to the program and is not planning to shut it down because the wait is so long

Lots of good information here, although most of it is second hand so we are considering it with that in mind and looking forward to what our agency has to say in their next monthly update. Most of it is what we have been hearing all along so there are no big surprises. With all of the above info in mind it is pretty easy to see why the wait times have increased so significantly. But we are inching closer, not sure how accurate my 7 more months calculation above is but it seems like it could be realistic. Although since we started this process the wait has consistently been 6 to 7 more months so we are prepared to wait longer or as long as we have to.

Wild "King"dom

Nothing new this week in adoption news, not really even any rumors out there, which is kind of odd. I am sure we will here some rumors this week though and will probably see referrals the week after. Since there is nothing new in adoption news I figured I would write about some of the fun going on in our back yard recently. We have been in our house for about 5 years now and although we don't really live out in the country we have have quite a few little critters taking up residence. Anyone who knows Jen knows that she is quite an animal lover, especially cats. So it was to her delight when during the second summer living here she found a litter of kittens living under our shed. Unfortunately they were feral so she couldn't run out and play with them. We didn't want them to continue to multiply so we decided to just borrow a "have a heart" trap and catch them and bring them to the local MSPCA so they could find them homes. Unfortunately we couldn't catch the mother so she had another litter the following summer. We caught the mother the second time around so we haven't had any kittens since. The next summer we had another family living under the shed, this time it was skunks. While the little babies were cute we didn't attempt to trap them. We left them alone and they left us alone. Not sure what happened to them but we haven't seen much of them lately. This year we seem to have a bit of a zoo.....



This little guy is usually lounging in our yard when I get home from work, he doesn't seem to be too afraid of people given that he let me walk right up to him to take this picture. Make me a little nervous for him with some of the other animals in the area.

I am not exactly sure what this thing is but we think it is a groundhog. It has dug a hole in my yard that is about 8 inches across, we are pretty sure that is where he lives. He is really shy though, I had to sit on my deck for about an hour and sit really still waiting for him to pop out.

This is the guy that makes me a bit nervous for the bunny. It is some type of hawk and it is huge. There are actually two of them that live at the bottom of our street. We had an incident with him last summer when I was out on the deck with our cat Lucy and the hawk landed on the tree branch above her and was contemplating swooping down on her. They kind of stared each other down for a few seconds and Lucy arched her back and fluffed up her tail to appear intimidating. I was really curious to see how it was going to play out then thought better of it and brought Lucy inside. I really doubt the hawk could have flown away with her but I really didn't care to find out. We also have an opossum living under my neighbors shed at the corner of my yard, although he is not very photogenic and only comes out at night so I haven't been able to get a picture of him.

Oracle Bones - A Journey Through Time In China

Oracle Bones - A Journey Through Time In China

by Peter Hessler

Oracle Bones is Peter Hessler's follow up to River Town where he writes about his time in the Peace Corps teaching English at a college in China. Oracle Bones follows some of the author's students and friends as they try to make their way in the fast changing China of today. There is also the story of an Uighur (Chinese ethnic minority) friend of his that emigrated to the United States right before the September 11th bombings. The book jumps back and forth between these stories and those of the archeologists who studied the Oracle Bones. Oracle Bones are ancient animal bones or turtle shells that were heated until they cracked and the cracks were used to tell the future. It is thought that the writing from these cracks is the oldest written Chinese language. Sadly, many of these artifacts were destroyed during the cultural revolution. If you read River Town the book may seem a bit repetitive as the author recycles some of the stories from his first book. I did enjoy the book but not as much as River Town, Oracle Bones is a bit more fragmented and doesn't really have much of a flow to it. I am sure there many connectiions and parallels that can be made comparing the past and future in the book but most of it wasn't too obvious to me. I am looking forward to Jen reading the book. With her being an English major she may pick up on more than I did.

Top 10 Ways You Know You've Waited Too Long For a Referral From China

Not much new in adoption related news, we are still two or three weeks away from the next batch of referrals. Not even much for rumors this month which is probably a good thing. Jen finished up school for the year last week so she is getting started on her summer vacation. We really don't have any big plans for this summer though. One of Jen's goals for the summer is to finish Grace's 100 good wishes quilt. Jen and I were joking around the other day about how much longer we have been waiting for a referral than we originally expected so I challenged her to come up with a David Letterman Style top ten list to post, pretty funny I think....

Jenny's Top 10 Ways You Know You've Waited Too Long For a Referral From China:

10. You've stopped telling people you're adopting from China because chances are the next time you run into them you'll still be waiting.

9. When someone tells you a far off date in the future as 12-18 months you think to yourself "wow, that's coming up so soon!"

8. You know people who have had two kids in the time you've been waiting for a referral from China.

7. The last Olympics were happening when you started trying for a family and there's a good chance you'll be in China for the '08 Olympics there.

6. You know couples who have gotten engaged, married and had a baby all while you've been trying to start a family.

5. You try out all the baby stuff on the cat to "practice"--and you take pictures to post on your website because there's no other news to report.

4. You automatically convert the time to Beijing time in your head because you think maybe the CCAA is working on referrals.

3. Your nursery bedding has been discontinued.

2. You've had to dust cobwebs off the changing table in the nursery.

1. You've gone on your last childless vacation.....5 times!!!

17 Months

We almost let slip by that last Tuesday was 17 months since our Log In Date. The CCAA also updated their website last week to confirm that the cutoff date was November 7, 2005.

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.

Our Visitors

Still no news on the next batch of referrals, we are hoping that we will hear something at some point this week. The early rumors were that this batch was going to be really big and get through the middle of November. While this would have been great and we would love to see it happen we really never believed it. Early last week there was another rumor floating around that they were going to only get through 2 days of referrals. Then there was another rumor late last week that they were going to get through 6 days which is probably more likely although we hope that they get through at least a couple more days than that. We got some interesting mail this past week in the form of a check from Google for the ads I have up on this site. I put the ads up about a year ago not expecting to earn any significant money. My earnings started out kind of slow but over the past 6 months I have been averaging around $10 a month. We are obviously not going to be able quit our jobs and retire from the advertising but a couple $100 checks a year are a nice little contribution to Grace's college fund. I am actually a bit surprised at the amount of traffic that this site gets. We started this site just as a sort of journal for our friends and family to keep track of our progress with the adoption. But it turns out more than half of the traffic to this site is from people we don't know which is fine with us as we really like following along with other people's adoption websites as well. It does make me a little nervous though that we get so many strangers looking at our website since we have some pretty personal info up here and we plan to post pictures of Grace once we get them. I started tracking all visitors to this site about a year ago just to make sure I wasn't getting any weirdos visiting the site. The tracking software I use allows me to see all kinds of cool info about who is coming to the site. Although I can't see exactly who is coming to the site it gives me a pretty good idea. I can see the city and state where the the computer is that the visitor is coming from. I can see the Internet Service Provider (Comcast, AOL) that the user is using or if the visitor comes to the website from a work computer I can see the company name. I can also tell how the visitor got to our website, if they linked from another website or if they found it through a search engine I can see what they typed it to find it. Maybe it is just the computer geek in me that finds this interesting but I thought you might find some of these statistics interesting as well

This is the main statistics summary screen. Since I started tracking I have had almost 8,500 visits to the website and those visitors viewed my pages over 23,000 times.

I have been averaging about 250 visitors and 1000 page views a month. Although the last two months my traffic really increased because the chart that I created comparing referral trends last year vs. this year got posted on all kinds of other adoption websites and really increased my traffic.

What I find most interesting is where the visitors are coming from. The dots on the map above represent where the last 100 visitors to my site are from. The majority of the traffic comes from the US but I get a significant amount of traffic from Canada, Europe, Australia and even China. The first time I got a visit from China I got a little nervous as I thought it could be the China Center of Adoption Affairs checking up on me but I think it was just a parent in China getting their child who went to my site. Last month our website was posted on an Chinese adoption forum in Denmark. I tried to get on the website to see what they were saying but the website was in Danish so I couldn't read it and figure out how to register. So if you don't know us don't be afraid to leave us a message on our guest book and say hello.

Feeling Patriotic and a Trip to the zoo

Nothing better than a long holiday weekend to keep your mind off the long wait to adopt from China. We had a pretty busy weekend. We traveled down to Maryland to watch Jen's nephew graduate from the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Pretty appropriate place to be on Memorial Day weekend, we are very proud of Ryan as he embarks on a career defending our freedom.

We also took a trip to DC to take in a couple museums and check out the Pandas at the National Zoo. We had a tough time getting any pictures of anything else other than panda butt, although this one came out Ok.

These guys were much more willing to smile for us. It was a fun weekend all around but now we are back and ready for referrals to arrive. There is still not much floating around in the way of rumors. There is still a rumor that this is going to be a big month and they are going to get to the middle of November. We would love this to be true but really don't believe that it is going to happen. Referrals should be arriving late this week or sometime next week so we will post an update when we hear anything.

Waiting

We are still about two weeks away from the next batch or referrals arrival. There are rumors floating around that it is going to be a bigger batch that what we have been seeing. This flies in the face of logic though as November is supposed to be a very big month so we are not getting our hopes up for anything more than 9 or 10 days of Log in Dates which is what they did last year and this year seems to be trending pretty close. Will be interesting to see if the trend continues, although we would love for it to be wrong and refer more than 9 or 10 LIDs. The rumors tend to be funny though, they are usually really optimistic around the middle of the month and then tend to get more accurate as we get closer to when referrals arrive. So we will probably have a better sense of how far they will get by next weekend.

King of Queens

Jen and I recorded the final episode of "King of Queens" last night and finally got around to watching it tonight. For those who do not know this was the finale where they go to China to adopt a baby. Whenever TV shows (especially sitcoms) try to take on adoption they never get it right and this was no exception. We never really watched the show but did catch an episode here and there so we get the gist of it. Now we realize that this is a comedy and it would be pretty boring for them to go through the two year plus wait it takes to adopt from China. So it didn't bother us that it took them two days to complete the paperchase.....It took us four months. It didn't bother us that they got their referral in a week......we have been waiting over 16 months. It didn't bother us that they got a referral for a 4 day old baby......the youngest a baby is at referral is 6 months old. Unfortunately 90% of the population that doesn't know anything about Chinese adoption will see the show and think that it is that easy. What did bother us were some of the stupid comments they made during the show. Carrie says "I've ordered Chinese food before but never a Chinese baby". Then Carrie finds out that she is pregnant and they perpetuate the stupid myth that infertile couples will get pregnant once they adopt and can finally relax. Uggg.....Now I know this does happen but I cannot tell you how many people after learning that we are adopting have told us that we will get pregnant after we adopt. Ummm, we had 6 failed IUIs and 3 failed IVFs, probably not going to happen. There were more stupid comments as well. After Doug finds out that Carrie is pregnant he points to the new Chinese baby and asks "what are we going to do with that one". And then says "I guess we will have two babies with very different shaped eyes". That is just not funny, and kind of racist. Also whenever they said the baby's name, Ming Mei, they would run the laugh track as if her name was a joke, still not sure why that was funny. Now maybe since we are adopting from China we are hyper-sensitive about the subject and again we realize it is a comedy but there are some things that shouldn't be joked about and thrown lightheartedly into a 60 minute sitcom for sweeps week ratings.

Happy Mothers Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of the Mothers and Mothers-in-waiting out there. We had a pretty low key day today, Jen went out with a friend and I stayed home and did the house/yard work. Mother's day is tough when you are waiting but we are hoping we don't have too much longer to wait. There is a scary new rumor floating around that China may temporarily stop accepting new applications because there is such a backlog of families waiting to adopt. I read somewhere that there are between 25,000 and 30,000 dossiers in China waiting to be matched with children. At the rate they are going now it will take at least 3 years to get through this backlog. So I guess in a sense it would makes sense to hold off on accepting new applications to catch up a little. Rumors like this are rough for people waiting to turn 30 to be eligible or people planning to adopt a second child and keep their children close together in age. At this point though it is only a rumor so we aren't really concerning ourselves too much with it. We also heard tonight that one of the reality shows that Jen and I watch, Survivor, will be filmed in China next season. While I am sure the show won't focus on the culture and history of China, it will be cool to watch a mainstream show filmed there.

CCAA May Update

The CCAA updated their website tonight confirming that November 1st was the cut-off date. See update below. Last Saturday marked 16 months of waiting since our Log In Date. It is tough not to know exactly how much longer we have to wait but Jen and I have been keeping busy lately with spring cleaning and landscaping work around the house to prepare for our summer outdoor activities. This usually means cookouts on the deck and enjoying a couple drinks with friends. With just a little luck this should be our last leisurely summer on the deck. Next summer we want to be chasing Grace around the back yard.

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.

DTC Group Get Together

We got together this afternoon with our DTC Group. These are the people from our Adoption Agency who have the same Log In Date as we do so we will be traveling to China together. Some of the couples are going to adopt their second child and brought their little ones to the get together. It gave us a little hope that there really will be a child at the end of this journey. We had a lot of fun and it was great to talk to a group of people in the same situation as we are who really understand what we are going through. The consensus at the get together seemed to be that we will get our referral in November and travel in January. Not much news on the next batch of referrals. There is a chance that they will arrive this week but we also heard that there is a Chinese Holiday this week so the CCAA may be off for part of the week. So next week is probably more likely for referrals arriving.

Quilting

We are closing in on the time of the month when rumors start flying around regarding how far they are going to get with the next batch of referrals. There is nothing out there yet though, we just hoping they get through more that just two days like the last batch. Jen was on vacation last week so she was able to get started on Grace's quilt. I posted a picture below of all of the squares laid out on our dining room table. We got a nice little surprise the last couple days as well. The sun!!! After a week of rain and some snow last Sunday it looks like Spring may have finally arrived in New England. Sunshine and warm weather always helps to lift our spirits.

CCAA April Update

The rumors were true, they did only refer 2 days worth of Log In Dates. The update from the CCAA website is below. The odd thing was our agency got 20 referrals, which is a lot for them since they are a small agency. I went back though all of our emails from them for the past 15 months and the average number of referrals per month that they have received is 8.2. I also read on one of the adoption forums that some other small agencies got more referrals than they usually do. So it is possible that the 25th and the 26th were really heavy days and things will get back to normal next month. We will just have to wait and see. I have a feeling though that we are in for some small batches the next few months. We did get a little surprise in the mail on Wednesday, our USCIS approval. They got the document back to us pretty quickly this time although they got our address wrong. Our agency told us not to worry about it so I guess we will leave it as is. Not much else going on here, were are dealing with the ever extending wait as best we can and just hope that things will stabilize a bit soon. Needless to say, this was a rough week for us and all of the other waiting families.

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.

USCIS Update

We finally got all of our paperwork together for our USCIS approval. That will go out in the mail on Monday. We have heard that approvals for renewals from the Boston office are coming back pretty fast so we expect we will hear something back within a couple weeks. Rumors are that referrals will be coming in early this week and that they may cover up to very early November. Early November would be good but we are just hoping that they get to at least October 31st. This week we also created a new page on this site with all of the books related to adoption and China that we have read. We wrote up a quick review of each book and will be updating with other books as we get through them. You can get to the page by clicking Book Reviews link on the right.

More USCIS stuff

We are making some progress on getting our paperwork together to renew our USCIS approval. We have been dragging our feet a little but we have some time to get the application in so it is no big deal. The first time around we made extra copies of all of our documents so we can just use those to renew, so that should save us some time. Since we are nearing the end of the month referrals should be out soon. We don't expect to hear anything this week, most likely next week or the week after. We are tempering our enthusiasm for this batch as the last 7 days in October have many families logged in so we are hoping they get through at least October 31st. November is rumored to be a big month as well so we are expecting the next 3 - 5 batches to be smaller than normal.

China Ghosts - My Daughter's Journey to America, My Passage to Fatherhood

China Ghosts - My Daughter's Journey to America, My Passage to Fatherhood

by Jeff Gammage

In China Ghosts the author tells the story of how he became a father to a daughter from China from three distinct perspectives. The first part, as he and his wife paperchase for their daughter, describes how he was initially very happy living a childless life. He saw no need to give up his freedom and take on the responsibility of a child. But to appease his wife he agrees to adopt a baby girl from China. His perception changes drastically once he receives his referral picture and travels to China to finally meet his daughter. The second perspective is when the author begins to bond with his daughter and finds a part of himself that he didn't know existed. He finds himself a changed man, not just that his life has changed now that he is a father but a profound love that has changed his very soul. The third and probably most interesting part of the book is when the author explores some of his conflicting feelings about his daughter's adoption. He is very grateful for the gift that China has given him but at the same time realized that the adoption of his daughter has caused great pain for his daughter's birth family and ultimately for his daughter who most likely will never have the chance to meet them. Most books about adoption from China are written by women so it was nice to read something from a male point of view for a change. I would definitely recommend reading this book, it is very well written and a pretty easy read.

Wild Swans

Wild Swans

by Jung Chang

In Wild Swans, Chang tells the autobiographical story of three generations of Chinese women, her Grandmother, a warlord's concubine, her mother, a high level communist official and herself and their struggles throughout the 20th century. The story focuses mostly on Chang's family struggle and persecutions throughout the cultural revolution where, prior to, her parents held powerful positions. Through Chairman Mao's policies this powerful family suffered greatly so it is unimaginable how much peasants must have suffered at this time. Through the book the author tries to tow the communist party line but slowly begins to realize that it is her own government that is causing the suffering that she has seen and and has endured. Toward the end of the book, after Mao's death, the government starts to open up a bit and the author leaves China to attend university in England where she she still resides and is currently the director of Chinese studies at London University. This book is not really an easy read but it really gives you a sense of the struggles that even this politically connected family endured during the very recent past. Makes you really feel for what the peasants had to deal with during this time.

River Town

River Town

by Peter Hessler

River town is the story of a Peace Corps volunteer, Peter Hessler, who travels to Fuling China to teach English in a local college. Peter is the first Westerner to live in Fuling in over 50 years. He is met with much curiosity in his travels around town while getting to know the local customs and culture. In time though he is able to immerse himself in the town and becomes good friends with some locals and many of his students. Much of the book centers around his classes and interactions with his students as well as his interactions with locals in Fuling and other cites he travels to during his time off. This book is a pretty easy read, Peter has good writing style and injects quite a bit of humor into some of the uncomfortable situations he gets himself into. One of the more interesting aspects of the book is the difference in Chinese and Western teaching styles. As Peter tries to nurture his students and get them to think for themselves and question common Chinese beliefs his Chinese tutor shows him the Chinese way of teaching by giving him a stern 'Budui' (wrong) whenever he mispronounces a word. It is a great study on many of the differences of Western and Chinese culture. The author has written another book on China called "Oracle Bones" which is on our "To Read" list.

Will The Boat Sink The Water?

Will The Boat Sink The Water?

by Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao

We bought this book as light reading for our last trip to Jamaica, it wasn't so light. The book is written by two Chinese journalists and has been translated into English, the translation is good but the subject matter is pretty heavy. The book was banned in China but is said to have sold 10 million copies on the black market. The authors travel throughout their home province of Anhui to see how the peasants are fairing through China's recent newfound prosperity. What they find isn't good. The book tells through a series of stories how various peasants feel that they are being treated unjustly mostly due to over taxation and try to go up the local government chain of command to get their issues resolved. They are met with jail time, beatings and even death. To be honest, I did not enjoy reading this book, although I think it does show some of the hardships that Chinese peasants must deal with on a daily basis and shows haw far China has yet to come to become a truly modern society.

The Good Earth

The Good Earth

by Pearl S. Buck

"The Good Earth" tells the story of a peasant farmer and his family living in China in the early 1900s. The story begins as the main character, Wang Lung is about to get married to a servant named O-Lan working for the local landlord. The young married couple are very poor but through hard work they are able to acquire some land and become relatively prosperous. They have a few children and life soon gets difficult when famine hits. The family most go south to find food and work. They find themselves begging and doing menial jobs to just scrape by. The country is embroiled in a revolution at the time as well so Wang must be careful not to get caught and forced to fight in the military. The family gets caught up in an uprising of local peasants who loot a rich family's home. They find coins and jewels and are able to get back home to their land. With their looted coins and jewels they are able to buy more land and eventually buy the house where O-Lan worked as a servant. Toward the end of the story Wang Lung is so prosperous that he no longer has to work his farm and lives the life of a rich man. He takes some concubines which causes problems with his wife and children. It is sad to read throughout the book how O-Lan is treated but I think it is probably pretty realistic to how women were treated at this time. This book was written in the 1930s but we really enjoyed it. It won a Pulitzer prize and recently was rediscovered by many on Oprah's book club. The book was also made into a movie in 1937. Due to the lack of Chinese actors at the time the main characters were cast as Americans but it was still pretty good. The author of the book, Pearl S. Buck grew up in China but went to college in the United States. Interestingly, she founded the first international interracial adoption clinic in the United States. The book was re-released in 1935 as a trilogy called the House of Earth. The two sequels are called Sons and A House Divided. I have yet to read them but they are on my "to read" list.

Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

by Richard Ferber, M.D.

I think I first heard about "Ferberizing" a child in the movie "Meet the Fockers" where they sort of exaggerate the methodology with DeNiro's character. The basis of this methodology is to allow the child to teach herself to fall to sleep without the help of the parents. This involves letting the child cry a little longer every night until she can sleep through the night without any intervention of the parents. For us, we will be trying to create attachment and a bond with Grace so the Ferber method is contrary to attachment parenting. We cannot let just let Grace cry as this would not foster her trust in us. With that being said, I think once we feel Grace has formed an attachment we may be able to use some of his approach as we see fit. Some parts of the book are a bit dry when he discusses the stages of sleep. There are some good sections on night terrors (what they are and how to handle them). Overall, I thought the book had some good information. I probably will need to reread sections of the book when we have Grace home and are actually dealing with sleep problems.

Are Those Kids Yours?

Are Those Kids Yours?

by Cheri Register

Apparently, "Are Those Kids Yours" is a question many parents with children adopted from other countries hear when out with their children. The answer of course is a simple "Yes". But that question says a lot about how families created through international adoption are perceived in our society. The book was written by a mother of two children adopted from Korea. In the book she examines the ethical issues surrounding international adoption and the importance of teaching them about the heritage and culture of their birth country. She uses experiences she encountered raising her children to illustrate some of the joys and and challenges families formed through international adoption will face.

The Waiting Child

The Waiting Child

by Cindy Champnella

A friend of Jen's mom sent us this book after learning that we were in the process of adopting from China. This is a really amazing story of a family that adopts a four year old girl named Jaclyn. From the moment Jaclyn learns to communicate with her new family she begins to lobby them to get "her baby". Her Baby was a younger little boy back in her orphanage who she protected and took care of. I won't ruin the ending but will say it is a really sweet story that shows the unbelievable spirit of little Jaclyn.

USCIS Renewal

We got an email from our agency this week with instructions for renewing our USCIS approval. It is pretty much the same process as the first time around only this this time it should be easier as we have all the documents we need, we just need to make copies of them. We are hoping to get it all together and sent out within a week or two. Jen is also getting ready to start working on Grace's 100 good wishes quilt. She went out this weekend and picked up a book on quilting and is trying to decide on the design. Just a reminder if you want to send us a quilt square and haven't yet make sure you get it to us by April 1st.

14 Months

We reached another milestone in our adoption journey last Monday, 14 months since our Log In Date. Referrals came in on Monday as well. Our agency received six referrals, the CCAA also updated their website that they have matched families with Log in Dates up to October 24th. We are slowly creeping closer to our referral. Based on current projections it is still looking like we may get our referral by the end of the summer. Although November is suspected to have a bit more Log in Dates than the past few months so it may take longer to get through, which would push our referral into the fall. That means we could be traveling to China around the holidays, Christmas in China sounds good to us. Update from the CCAA website is below:

Paradise

Back to reality today. We spent the past week at the Sunset at the Palms resort in Negril, Jamaica. This is the same resort we went to last winter and we had such a good time we had to go back. Since we were return guests management went out of their way to make us happy. One night they left a bottle of Champagne in our room and on our last night there we were invited to a special dinner with management and two other couples who were return visitors as well. One thing we like about the resort is it isn't really child friendly, so there really aren't a bunch of kids running around screaming and splashing in the water. Not that we don't like kids we just wanted some quiet time for a romantic vacation. One thing we decided before we left was that we weren't going to discuss our pending adoption with other people at the resort. Since this vacation was about us we didn't want to spend our time educating people about Chinese adoption, also you never know what people may say that we might find offensive so we decided we would just not mention it to anyone. This was a little difficult as we hung out a bit with another really nice couple who mentioned in passing that they had friends who were in the process of adopting from China but we kept our mouths shut. We spent most of the time on the beach, at the pool or stuffing our faces with food. We took one trip off the resort to go shopping and to Rick's Cafe where people jump off a huge cliff into the water. Neither Jen nor I took the plunge. Another highlight of the trip was our visit to the Office of Nature (or as Jen decided to rename it The Ministry of Magic). This was just a bunch of local Rastafarians who set up on the beach and sell crafts and will catch fresh lobster and grill them up for you on a sea wood grill. The lobster was so good. Was nice to get out of the resort and hang out with and have a beer with some of the locals. Some pics of our excursions are below.....

Checking out for a little while to recharge the batteries.......

Quilting last call

Not much new with the adoption this week. The middle of the month is usually quiet as far as rumors about the next batch so we just patiently wait. Jen is getting ready to start working on the 100 Good Wished Quilt for Grace. So if anyone hasn't yet sent us a square and wish get it to us before April 1st. You can get the details about the Quilt on the link on the right. If there is anyone who reads this website and wants to swap quilt squares just post your email address to our guest book and we will get in touch for contact info.

CCAA February Update

Referrals arrived last Thursday, they covered families with Log In Dates up to October 13th. This means that they did Sixteen days worth of Log In Dates which is good. There was week in this batch where there were no Log In Dates because the CCAA was on vacation for the Moon Festival. But there was also a day with more than normal Log In Dates so It looks like it pretty much balances out. The big question this month is when referrals will come out. Chinese New Year is February 18th and the CCAA will be on vacation for two weeks. So that means they either have to get the next batch out really quick or wait until after the holiday which may push things back a little. This week (Monday) we are celebrating 13 months since our Log in Date. Not really doing anything to celebrate, just nice to reach another milestone. The people that just got their referrals last week waited about 16 months. This makes it seem like we are getting close but an additional month gets tacked on every two months so we think our wait will end up being 18 months, give or take a month. The CCAA website update is below: