Little Ruby, tiny treasure, my baby, my dear, little one I'll be with you very soon, very soon. Tender heart take your comfort in the arms of those near 'til the day I will hold you my baby.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Lots To Talk About

There is so much going on right now. No news yet on referral, but hopefully really soon we will hear about possible cut off dates. It is possible by the end of the week that we will be hearing the great stork's wings flapping....

The big CCAA meeting on the 8th of Dec. has caused a lot of talk. It is rumored that at the first of the year many people may be informed that they have been denied participation in the China program. That would break our hearts! Some of the new rules may affect people that are already logged in and waiting on a referral. Reporters are starting to snatch up the story so we may all be seeing this on the news soon... Weight, health, financial and marital status could possibly be the cause for being eliminated from the program in the near future (May 2007). Right now it is said to be possible for weight and medical or health conditions to be receiving a call in early January.....

If some who are logged in before us are removed from the program we could be going to China sooner than we have been thinking... That sure would be bittersweet. I pray God's comfort on those who feel threatened by this news.

If you check out this site and scroll down you will see where our documents are. There you will find photos of the CCAA office and the matching room... where the babies are matched with their parents...

www.ammonsadventures.blogspot.com

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Christmas Referrals

A second agency is now saying referrals will be here before Christmas.

There is also an agency saying they will be here the week of Christmas. So, right after Christmas, presumably.

This gives us:

2 agencies saying they will be here before Christmas.
1 agency saying they will be here right after Christmas.
2 agencies saying they won’t be here until after the first of the year.
1 partridge in a pear tree.

Will It Stabilize?

"In order to deal with this imbalance, CCAA has decided to both reduce
the number of dossiers accepted by applying stricter standards to
potential adoptive families and to increase the number of children
available for adoption by improving the situation of children in
China's orphanages. To this end, CCAA has plans to create a new
charity (Blue Skies) to provide the care needed by orphanages to keep
infants and young children alive and well enough to be adopted. One of
Blue Skies' first projects will be giving incubators to orphanages for
babies born prematurely.

However, CCAA warns that this will not immediately decrease the length
of time that families are now waiting for referral of their children.
That length of time will remain the same (around 15 months) or even
increase somewhat. All families should now plan to file a second
I-600A in order to apply for a new I-171H unless they are adopting a
Waiting Child." RQ

Great news! This information comes from an agency this week. If this pans out, we could be getting a call in April and in China in June. I'm not getting my hopes up too far. But it would be something to smile heartily about.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Referrals Soon?

"We have a very reliable European agency who is saying that the CCAA is almost done with this batch and that they are going to do all of September. It is unclear to me whether they mean all of that agency’s September people or all of September. And I’m not sure when this agency’s last September LID is, either. At any rate, just the news that they are about done is really, really, really exciting. It’s only been two weeks since the last batch arrived." RQ

Could it be true? How exciting! I hope they do cover the rest of September! Then we'd only have 3 1/2 months left of referrals to wait through... Sometimes things move faster this time of year because of Chinese New Year (in early February). I hear they try and pace themselves in a way that would allow them to take the week off for their big holiday. We'll just have to wait and see...

Monday, December 11, 2006

The Big Meeting...

It appears that the big CCAA meeting has resulted in many new rules and requirements for applicants to adopt from China. So it looks like they are trying to control the wait by eliminating some dossiers.... These changes will not speed our wait, but it will help to shorten the wait for those just now applying......

New Stats From State Department

"The State Department has their new stats up. The stats show that in 2005 Americans adopted 7,906 babies from China. In 2006 Americans adopted 6,493 babies from China. In 2005 about 632 SN babies came to the U.S. while about 7,274 NSN babies came to the U.S. And this would mean that in 2006 about 1,623 SN babies came to the U.S. while only about 4,870 NSN babies came to the U.S. So the total number of NSN babies would be (by my very rough estimates) around 7,300 babies last year and 4,900 babies this year. That’s a pretty big drop."

This quote from the Rumor Queen helps to show the extreme drop off in numbers for children adopted into America this year. The wait has more than doubled this year. For every month we wait, it is only as if we had waited a couple of weeks. Patience. Maybe that should be Ruby's middle name.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Little Ruby, Tiny Treasure

I think it's crazy how in love you can be with a girl half way around the world that you don't even know anything about yet. i think it's even more crazy to think about it being my little baby sister, Ruby. One of my largest weaknesses is to be patient. Maybe God wants the wait to be longer for a reason. maybe the reason is for our family to practice our patience. i didn't ever think that adoption would be this hard. But the thing is i can't wait. i can't wait any longer. i have already waited over a year, and now another year? this is so hard for me i can't even put it down in words how much i miss my little Ruby. I have no idea what she looks like or how old she is. i only know that soon enough, if i am patient, she'll be with us, here in our arms. Our little Ruby, tiny treasure.

-Emily Anna

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Saturday, December 9, 2006

If You Ask Me... by Phoebe

I don't know why the wait is taking such a long time. We may have to wait almost a whole other year for Ruby. And I don't know why but they keep changing the amount of months before we can go get her. It makes me feel so sad inside because we have a room for Ruby and everything so perfect for her. We're ready to go get her. Somethings going on in that office and I'm still going to try to figure it out. I'm going to pray that she's going to be safe and warm, have a bottle to drink out of, some diapers and some clothes to keep her warm and cozy in a nice warm bed. If you ask me, I think that it would be really, really cool if we could get her in two months or may six, as soon as possible.

Friday, December 8, 2006

Big Meeting at CCAA...

The China Center for Adoption Affairs had a very big meeting last night. What I hear is that the wait time from LID to referral will not shorten at this time and it may get longer. :( They note that the CCAA does not define what they mean by longer. There is talk of it growing to 24 months wait from LID to referral. That would make it January 2008 for us! All we can do is wait and pray.

The next referral batch is expected at the end of the month. The last week of the month is fun because people are receiving referrals and there is an excitement in hoping for the referral "line" to move up a bit..... Right now, they are at September 8, 2005. The first week of the month is great because many who are adopting will post pics of their babies.... That's always fun. It's reassuring to see that people are getting to their final days of waiting and to know that one day it will be our turn to post Ruby's picture here!

Bethany Christian Services

We had several more meetings with Bethany (BCS) over the next six weeks. We were told that this first stage was really the only step we would have any control over. The name of the game is "hurry up and wait". So we sent off for all of the necessary documents from Texas and Florida. We had every thing triple authenticated by city, county and state. And finally, we finished all of the paperwork, asked every question and turned our dossier into BCS. Bethany checked it over and sent it off the next day to Grand Rapids to have the documents go through further authentication. On December 29, 2005 our dossier was finally on it's way to China! DTC 12-29-05!

The next step would be to wait for our LID or log-in date. Bethany said it would be anywhere from 2-6 weeks. But knowing that the Chinese New Year puts a halt on all adoption processes, we knew it could be longer... The LID determines your place in line to receive a referral and an invitation to travel. A referral packet from China contains a photo of your baby, medical documents, travel instructions and documents to travel with. The referral wait time fluctuates throughout the year, depending upon how many babies are processed each month. When we started the process, the "wait time" from LID to referral was 6-8 months. A friend of ours had a wait time of one year and it ended up being only 6 months, so it could change.

Our LID (login date) is January 17th. Upon receiving that LID, we were told we could get our referral as early as October 17, 2006. But that is not the way it played out. :( That date has come and gone. We are now looking at Late July or August of 2007 before that famous stork brings a little package with a picture of our Ruby...

Welcome to Ruby's blog!

How exiting! I finally got my act together and figured out how to start a blog! I have been wanting to keep everyone as informed as possible as to the process of bringing Ruby home. This wait has grown every month since we submitted our paperwork. From what I understand, the wait has never been this lengthy. It is very hard to be expecting a child for so many months and have to wait, uncertain of the day when we will finally see her sweet little face.

We started the process in August of 2005 by making an appointment with our social worker, Bethany Morrison at Bethany Christian Services. She, being on her way to Italy, gave us two mind boggling stacks of paperwork to begin our paper pregnancy. I remember leaving the office feeling numb but very excited. David and I both were in shock and astounded at the wave upon wave of details and information we had just been flooded with. What a relief and thrill! Our first homestudy was behind us. I think I even felt a little nauseaus! :)