Adoption News!

Okay, everyone, now don't get too excited. It isn't what ya'll are expecting to hear, but it is adoption news and, after all, that was the original point in having this blog. I'm just so excited to have another milestone out of the way. Oh, yeah, sorry. . . the news. . .

On the China Center of Adoption Affairs website is the following tidbit under the heading, "document processing:"

"The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office before December 31, 2005."

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so what the heck does that mean? It means that after only 9 months and 10 days of our dossier sitting in their office, they have finally fully reviewed our file and found us acceptable parents for one of the many orphans sitting in an as yet unknown Chinese Social Welfare Institute. (SWI)

Last time I didn't even pay attention and couldn't tell you when our file came out of the review room. But this time I've been watching pretty closely, mostly because there hasn't been much else for us to be looking forward to in the near future. But we have also been a little concerned as there are many rumors floating that the CCAA will be putting out a new batch of regulations any day now. We are assuming that they will not put any of the new regulations into effect for dossiers that have already been through review. If that is true we are safe. The new regs are as yet undisclosed but we hear they might include lower ages for parents, lower weight requirements, college education and no single parents. We were a little concerned about the age and weight though feel we would have been safe on all those fronts. Still, I'm breathing a sigh of relief that we are through one more hurdle and now our file will just sit collecting dust until our daughter becomes one of those hard to come by "paper ready babies."

We still hear from time to time that the CCAA thinks they will hold the wait at around 12 months. They are at 14 months now, so that rumor isn't really holding water. We'd be quite happy with 14 months at this point since many rumors are suggesting the wait may end up at 18 to 24 months. Hard to believe how much our expectations can be lowered in just a few months time. One year ago, we fully believed we'd be home with our daughter by now.

Please keep praying for things to move a little faster. Mara sure is ready for that full-time playmate and we are very ready to hold our new daughter. It is getting harder and harder to think of her just sitting there waiting in an orphanage for the lack of somebody preparing her paperwork. Hard to understand but out of our control.