Smurfy's Blog

Twenty four months have passed and we still have no referral. Hmm, I thought the wait time was around 1 yr to 2 yrs.  I am unsure why the referral for expedited Chinese families is taking so long. Before 2007, the referrals weren’t as long as it is now. I remember that some Chinese families were matched with their baby in 6 months in the NSN line. Now the matching for NSN for expedited families is taking a lot longer.
Since we have been waiting for two years without a referral or match, I contacted our China Coordinator to ask more information about SN (special needs) children with minor correctable needs such as a cleft lip/palate. After receiving some information re: SN children, my husband and I decided to wait a little longer in case we do get a match for a NSN (non-special needs) baby in 2010.

Attended a Baby Care pre-adopt class at Kaiser Oakland.  The class had two sessions – morning and afternoon sessions.  In the morning session, the class taught us some basic stuff like how to feed your baby, hold your baby, cloth your baby, etc.  Also, the class had discussions about baby’s health and safety issues.  In afternoon session, the class was broken into two groups – international adoption and domestic adoption.  Since my husband and I are doing international adoption, we joined with the international adoption group.  In this class, we were given information about how to promote attachment in children as well as medical and physical expectations.

Telephone conference with our social worker to update our homestudy.

Since we are still waiting for a referral, some files needed some up-to-date information such as our medical record.  Back to the doctor’s office!

After a year has passed, we were still waiting to receive a referral or to be matched with a baby. Since we have been waiting for over a year, we needed to get re-fingerprinted for our I600.

LID (Log In Date)! Our documents received and recorded at CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs).
Now we just wait to get a referral or to be matched with a baby. From this point in time, the wait time for expedited families (of chinese ancestry) in the NSN line is about 12 – 14 months.

DTC(Dossier to China)!  We were so relieved that our dossier was finally all put together and completed!

Visited our China Coordinator today. We gave her our files for translation, 4 pictures of us, etc. She will then mail our documents to CCAA in China.

Visited the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco to get documents authenticated.

We went to Sacramento to have some notarized documents certified.