China Adoption News

The following was sent to us in an e-mail from our Home Study Agency:

CHINA
Over the past few weeks there has been a terrific increase in dossier "log-in" at CCAA. They've gone from processing about 800 referrals per month to 1500. Needless to say, this may result in a slow-down on the referral time. CCAA is not open to processing more than 1500 referrals a month, and as more families submit dossiers, the time may lengthen to eight months or more.

It is important that we all understand a) that international adoption is increasingly appealing and acceptable among US families and b) that foreign nations are not thrilled to be sending more children overseas for placement. Add the pressure and the resistance and you get -- slow downs, moratoriums, shut downs. In biology, you would call it stasis. In adoption you call it headaches and disappointments.

There is no light on the horizon. The Hague Convention will make adoption safer for children by filtering out child trafficking and ensuring pre-adoption education but also more expensive for agencies and families. Please always plan on the possibility that you will encounter delays or that your process may be more complex than originally anticipated. That is just the nature of adoption, both international and domestic adoption. Being realistic is the best hedge against anxiety and heartache.

So...is this good news because there are more families that want to adopt children from China? Or is this bad news because we may not be bringing our daughter home as soon as we thought that we would? When we attended the "East Meets West" China Adoption Conference sponsored by Great Wall last April, word was that the CCAA was working feverishly to reduce the ENTIRE PROCESS down to nine months. Who knows???