news from china
now that i have 2 kids from china, i connected to the china adoption community in a big way. currently i am one of the coordinators for the monthly support group for families waiting for kids from china sponsored by families with children from china.
china, being the communist country that it is, can and does make their own rules for adoption. they decide what the criteria shall be for those who want to adopt from china. in may 2007 they came down with some new rules. one of which deemed single mothers no longer able to adopt. even though my family is complete, i was sad to hear this. i know how many wonderful parents will not get the chance to adopt from china. more importantly, i know how many many children in china need families to love them. it seems a tragedy on both sides to me.
my paperwork for hazel went to china in march 2006. at that time the wait for a regular referral was about 10 months. once i saw her sweet face, i moved out of the regular line and into the waiting child line. the rest as they say , is history. i left for china in june 2006 i have been home with her 16 months now.
these days the news coming out of china for adoptive families is not good. they used to send out referrals a month at a time, for example all of march got referred at once. over the last year all that has changed. the last batch of referrals only cover 5 days worth of log in dates. it took them 4 months to refer the families logged in in november 2005- the last few days came last week. if i had not found hazel, i would still be waiting with 96 log in dates ahead of me, even at what is a very fast pace of 10 days per month in today's rates, i would not be getting a referral for at least 10 months. that would mean a 2 year wait from log in to referral.
i can not imagine how i would feel if i were in this situation. i fell so badly for those who are stuck in this log jam. i never even know what to say to friends who are “there”. it seems like anything is a hollow platitude. but not to acknowledge their wait and pain seems disrespectful. so i try in all the ways i can to sympathize. i pass along hand me downs so they know I believe they will get their kids. i speak in the future tense, kiddingly cajoling them to “move to my neighborhood so the kids can all go to woodstock.” of course if i could , i would speed up the line so that they can hold their children sooner and know the joy.
there are all kinds of speculations about the reason for the wait. in the end it just comes down to this simple fact: china does what china wants.
china, being the communist country that it is, can and does make their own rules for adoption. they decide what the criteria shall be for those who want to adopt from china. in may 2007 they came down with some new rules. one of which deemed single mothers no longer able to adopt. even though my family is complete, i was sad to hear this. i know how many wonderful parents will not get the chance to adopt from china. more importantly, i know how many many children in china need families to love them. it seems a tragedy on both sides to me.
my paperwork for hazel went to china in march 2006. at that time the wait for a regular referral was about 10 months. once i saw her sweet face, i moved out of the regular line and into the waiting child line. the rest as they say , is history. i left for china in june 2006 i have been home with her 16 months now.
these days the news coming out of china for adoptive families is not good. they used to send out referrals a month at a time, for example all of march got referred at once. over the last year all that has changed. the last batch of referrals only cover 5 days worth of log in dates. it took them 4 months to refer the families logged in in november 2005- the last few days came last week. if i had not found hazel, i would still be waiting with 96 log in dates ahead of me, even at what is a very fast pace of 10 days per month in today's rates, i would not be getting a referral for at least 10 months. that would mean a 2 year wait from log in to referral.
i can not imagine how i would feel if i were in this situation. i fell so badly for those who are stuck in this log jam. i never even know what to say to friends who are “there”. it seems like anything is a hollow platitude. but not to acknowledge their wait and pain seems disrespectful. so i try in all the ways i can to sympathize. i pass along hand me downs so they know I believe they will get their kids. i speak in the future tense, kiddingly cajoling them to “move to my neighborhood so the kids can all go to woodstock.” of course if i could , i would speed up the line so that they can hold their children sooner and know the joy.
there are all kinds of speculations about the reason for the wait. in the end it just comes down to this simple fact: china does what china wants.
posted by chris at
7:50 AM
2 Comments:
Well spoken...
Like you, I am LID March 2006. I would have jumped the line IF my agency did SN adoptions. So here I wait with the rest of the masses. No longer do I get to realize my dream of holding two Chinese daughters. With a heavy heart.. I thank youf or the understanding and positive vibes.
Lisa
You're right, sometimes it really does feel like it's not ever going to happen, but every bag of "chris-me-downs" (we've re-named them) gives us a little burst of excitement and hope that at some point, we all will be home with our little ones, and yes...there is (with little urging required) a big part of me who wants to move to Woodstock neighborhood! Having one of the single Mamas village be a co-coordinator at the waiting families meetings is so great for us too- we really love having "representation" to suggest alternatives when they say "go out on dates with your husband to deal with the wait!" Hee hee hee...
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