Looking back, and a little ahead

Last night I was looking back at our previous posts on this blog, and contemplating how optimistic we were. Of course, that was before the referral slowdown really hit with full force, before the scandal in Hunan Province, and before the slowly grinding siege type mentality took over. Buying our first baby items, beginning to make plans for a nursery, it all seems so long ago now. We have slowly collected many things for Miaya, and have become accustomed to seeing them sitting there -- still unused. The crib is still unassembled, the nursery only partially done, it would be more difficult to see the room ready but empty. In the months since we bought those first baby things (and we were nervous for our social worker to see them), we have wandered through the baby section in many stores, occasionally picking up something on sale or clearance. Though always with a kind of "hopeful sadness" in our hearts.

Don't get me wrong, we're still optimistic, and the adoption WILL happen, but when the target keeps moving, it does get discouraging at times. We get an update called "Places Everyone" from our agency, Great Wall China Adoptions, after every referral batch is issued which shows where everyone's LID date stands in relation to the last batch, and what stage they are in, Translation, Pending Review, Review, or Pending Referral. It only shows the dates documents were mailed to China, and the dates they were logged in, not names of applicants.

We have slowly moved up the list, and now have 5 mailing dates resulting in 4 LID dates ahead of us, we are definitely closer. (Great Wall mails application dossiers to China every friday.) This puts us in the sixth slot, and it's very possible we may be four to six months away from getting the referral if the process remains the same. Supposedly, after November '05 clears, the number of applications drops considerably into early 2006. If the number of children becoming available remains about the same, then our hoped for day may come sooner.