China information in review:

So, I thought the first post should here should be a review of the information we have received so far from our agency about Sarah.

• December 22, 2005 ~ The dossier from the following families have been sent out to CCAA. They are in Group 123B, total 6 families. J******** Adam
• February 12, 2006 ~ Hello. We should be receiving your LID sometime this month or early next month. Unfortunately, referrals have been taking longer and longer. Recently referrals have been taking about 11 months. However, the time does keep getting longer. Ugh! I will email you as soon as I receive your LID and later your group number. Hang in there! I know it is hard to wait so long. Janice
• March 13, 2006 ~ Hello. Your LID is Jan. 13, 2006. With lots of hope and prayers we'll have a referral by the end of the year! Janice
• March 15, 2006 ~ Your DTC was Dec. 23 Adam
• April 12, 2006 ~ Group 115 - 116A (May 30 submission) got their referrals recently. The average age is 8.5 months. Adam
• May 22, 2006 ~ The wait is getting longer at about 11 - 12 months now. But to be specific about which date which group is going to get referrals is kind speculative. CCAA is aware of the waiting time and will try to speed things up. Adam
• May 23, 2006 ~ The question has been coming up as to why the referrals by the CCAA have become slower. Here's Adam's answer: The question why things are slowing down has been presented to CCAA many times and by many agencies. CCAA never gave back a specific answer. (No really, We did not see anything wrong, these are the typical answers). You can see this by seeing no agency can tell why it is happening. I think that it is combination of many small factors that lead to this and should get better down the road. There have been 2 major holidays, ther have been several major conferences, there will be a move, this is the first part of the year and so on. Hope this will help. Adam
• July 18, 2006 ~ CCAA is in the middle of a move which will take about a week. I have been told that the "fallout" will be two weeks. It seems like the referrals are currently taking around 11 to 12 months from the LID. I talk to quite a few China families and the 11 to 12 months seems to be the consensus. Janice
• September 1, 2006 ~ Dear colleague, Group 118A got their referrals! The average age is a little over 10 months. Adam
• December 1, 2006 ~ Dear colleague, According to CCAA website, the cut off date is Sept. 9 for this group of referrals. Unfortunately our Group 119B does not meet this requirement. Adam
• January 10, 2007 ~ As soon as your home study is complete, you should resubmit for your I-600A. Do not wait until March as I am not sure how long it will take the Arizona branch of the CIS to issue your I-171H. You will need to submit everything again (taxes, birth certs, home study, etc.). Either ask your home study agency or the local CIS office if your local branch will allow you to submit the I-600A now and then submit your home study when it is completed. They should be able to use your current fingerprints, but ask to be sure. Also, ask how long they take to issue the I-171H once they have everything. Referrals seem to be issued from Sept. LIDs. If the CCAA proceeds as they are now, you probably won't be traveling until summer. However, I'd rather you have your I-171H just in case. Janice
• January 18, 2007 ~ I am finishing up your home study report today and I plan to put it in today's mail to the court. I called the court and your fingerprint results are in. We should receive the court certification back within the next two weeks. Catherine
• February 4, 2007 ~ Your certification is back from court. I will mail out all your paperwork Monday. Catherine
• February 28, 2007 ~ You should be receiving the brown envelope in the next few months. Once you receive it, please email me your GUZ#. As it stands now, if my calculations are correct, you may receive your referral in August. China will be extremely traveled from July through September. So, if it's any consolation, flights will be easier to come by in October after the Olympics. Janice
• March 17, 2007 ~ Dear colleague, Group 120 got referrals recently, 16 babies total, 10 months in average ages. Adam
• May 4, 2007 ~ Dear colleagues, You have been alarmed probably by the waiting time for the China program. I felt the same. During my recent trip to China, I tried to get a clearer picture for the future for the China program. It have been a normal practice that orphanages would approach CCAA asking for favors so that their children could be assigned to foreign families sooner. The situation has completed reversed recently. Orphanages do not have that many children for adoption. More and more Chinese families are adopting directly from the orphanages. CCAA have seen that and got really concerned with the decreasing #. Less adoption cases means less staff, less founding and so on for them. CCAA will organize a national adoption conference in June. One of the proposes I believe is to encourage or push orphanages to go through international adoption process more. There are some bigger provinces that have never keen on international adoption. Get them on board is important as well. However, the results of this conference will take time to show its effects. So I suspect that the referral will be slow as now for a period of 3 - 4 months and then pick up. Adam
• May 4, 2007 ~ Did you receive the brown envelope from the US Embassy in China? If not, please email the Consulate in Guangzhou at http://us.f535.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=GuangzhouA@state.gov You will need your GUZ# and your original I-171H when you travel to China. Janice
• May 7, 2007 ~ Dear colleague, Group 121A just got referrals recently. The average age of the children are little over 11 months old. Their dossier were submitted in Oct. of 2005. Adam
• May 14, 2007 ~ Thank you for your email. We got a new approval with your new address and new fingerprint record from CIS. The case number we created is: GUZ2007134021. Sincerely yours, Adopted Children's Immigrant Visa Unit (ACIVU)
• May 14, 2007 ~ If you haven't received the brown envelope from the US Embassy prior to your travel, then please take this email with you plus your original I-171H. Thanks. Also, while you are waiting for your referral (Sigh!), you may want to download the I-600, I-864, and I-864a forms from the BCIS (INS) website. The I-864 and I-864a forms need to be notarized and are precautionary in case one of you must return home for an unforeseen reason. AHO will also send you a travel packet once you receive your referral which will include a Power of Attorney form giving power to each spouse. Again this is precautionary, but I recommend the POAs and the I-864s. Janice
• May 15, 2007 ~ I know Adam was hoping that the referrals would pick up, but he's aware of the limited number of orphans. The Adoption Conference is in June, so we'll see what transpires. Janice
  

Adam is the man who translated our dossier after we completed it. He is also the one who is in charge of our travel groups. When the CCAA sends our referral it will go to Adam first. He will translate everything, send it to our agency who will in turn send it to us. We will send our letter of acceptance (LOA) back to him and he will send it to the CCAA. He and his brother, LiPing (most likely LiPing) will be our liason when we get to China.

Janice is the courier from our agency. She collected our dossier paperwork from us and drove it around to all the places that it needed to go before heading to Adam for translation. I'm glad we didn't have to do all the traveling! She will also help us in getting our visas when it comes time to get them. We contact her with any questions we have regarding the process versus contacting our agency directly.

Catherine is from the home study agency here in Arizona. She did our home study, got it court certificated. She will probably help us out when we do the re-adoption after we bring Sarah home. Hopefully we will not have to do a home study update - this would happen we don't get our referral before our home study expires.