Kaz Update - or lack therof

Our dossier will have been at the NY Consulate for 60 days on Thursday. I am a little worried after reading comments from people with other agencies whose dossiers were rejected for having the request for a healthy child in their home study. I cannot remember what the exact language is in our home study, but I think it requests a child "with potential for overall good health" (i.e., it is ok if they are sick now as long as we can get them better through treatment).

Our agency guidelines state that it takes an average of 60 days to get through the Consulate review, so we are still within this time frame. Earlier in the year, however, it was taking closer to 20 days to get through, so we are a bit discouraged. I heard from our coordinator today that she expects it to take at least another couple of weeks and she will provide us a new update then. She said "the Consulate is trying to get caught up" presumably following the holidays in March. Which hopefully can be read as our coordinator not being worried about the wording in our home study, right?.

Bus 758 to Scranton

We often joke that we are more ready to parent teenagers than a little baby. Well, at least the awesome teenagers at church. The youth involved in the drama program just performed “Bus 758 to Scranton,” a play Chris wrote. It was a retelling of the parable of the sower and the seed set in a bus stop. It was really good. I loved how expressive all of the cast were. They worked really hard and I had to share some pictures!

China Update

The early rumors this month suggested a decent sized batch of referrals – possibly reaching 1/13/06. My own prediction was through 1/10/06 this month and 1/13/06 next month, so getting to the 13th in one month was a pretty positive prediction.

Referrals came out Friday – the cut-off is 1/9/06. This makes this one of the smallest batches in a while, which is saying something. It is not totally unexpected as April referrals have been very small batches for the past several years. The theory is that orphanage workers who prepare babies’ dossiers were on vacation for the New Year celebration. This in one of the few holidays during which many people are able to travel home, especially people who work in the city but have families in the country. So two months later when CCAA goes to assign babies whose dossiers were received the month before, there are fewer baby dossiers available. I am sure the huge snow storm, which left several orphanages without power for weeks, may have affected things as well.

It brings tears to my eyes reading the reactions of everyone who missed the cut-off by one day, especially after thinking most of the month that they were definitely “in”. Don’t give up! You will see your babies faces next month! I am also saddened to read that so many people with 06 and 07 LIDs have decided this month to drop out. I hope those people will find other options for expanding their families.

For us, I think we are now definitely looking at 2010 for China referral. At least we can breathe a little easier about ensuring a year between our adoptions. Really, this may help us ensure at least a year in age between the kids as well.

We have no update on the Kazakh adoption and are still waiting to get through the first round of reviews, which is at the Consulate in NY. Apparently the Consul should be back from vacation this week and hopefully we will hear something in the next couple weeks.