It’s only been about eight months since I did this, but I’m getting questions that tell me we have a lot of new people who haven’t looked around to see what is offered… so I guess it’s time for me to do this again.
At the top of the left hand column you’ll find links to my last ten blog entries.
Also, in the left hand column, if you scroll down just a bit you’ll find links to the last twelve comments made.
When you view a post, if you want to see other posts that are similar then take a look at the categories I’ve put the post into. Click on the one that makes the most sense for what you are looking for, and you’ll get posts I’ve put into that category. Analysis gets the posts where I’ve analyzed things (including the Projection and When posts), Adult Adoptees gets the posts where I’ve talked about adult adoptees, etc. There is also a complete list of categories near the bottom of the right hand column, you can click on any category to take you to the posts in that category.
In the top right hand column under Site Navigation you see a link that will take you to a page of the rules for people who wish to comment. Nothing draconian, just basic manners.
Next you’ll see a link to the Forum. What is a forum? Well, the part you’re looking at now is called the Blog. In the beginning the blog was where all conversation happened. Then as our little community grew we really needed a better place to talk, so along came the forum. Many rooms of the forum are viewable by anyone, but we have a few rooms that are only visible to those who are registered – nothing top secret, but sometimes it’s nice to talk about things in a spot that the search engines aren’t going to index. The forum has also turned into a nice spot for people to continue to come to once they are home with their babies. We’ve somehow managed to bring a lot of levelheaded people together who can have some pretty intelligent conversations – the forum provides a spot for us to continue to have a place to talk even after we are home. There are serious threads and fun threads, there are threads about adoption related parenting issues and then there threads about just plain old parenting issues (potty training, attitude, handling homework, etc.) You’ll find the rules for the forum stickied to the top of the General Discussion area, please look through them before you start posting. Again, nothing draconian, just some guidelines put in place so it can continue to be a pleasant place to hang out and talk.
I should note, again, that for some reason comcast will not deliver mail from chinaadopttalk.com to their subscribers. If you have a comcast.net address, you’ll need to use a different address in order to sign up for the forum and blog. You can try complaining to comcast if you want, I’ve tried but I haven’t gotten anywhere. Perhaps if paying customers complain they will do something.
Continuing down the top right of this page you’ll see two links for book recommendations. One page is for things relating to Adoption, Parenting, and China. The other page is for fictional book series that I enjoy, listed in the order that I personally like them. Most are Urban Fantasy, but not all. I haven’t updated the page for sequels in a while, I should probably do that.
Next you’ll see the CCAA Updates and Referrals page. This page lists when referrals have arrived and through what dates for as long as I’ve been keeping track. There is also a spreadsheet listing when the CCAA page has been updated.
Next you’ll find a calendar, and then there is Contact Info. I don’t respond to email, so if you want a response you’ll need to PM me in the forum. However, I’ve had to stop responding to as many PM’s as I’d like to be able to, as well, as some weeks I get well over 150 PM’s. Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT complaining about the volume, I really appreciate rumors coming to me and I don’t mind that I might see the same rumor 40 times. In reality, the more times I see the rumor, the more I can be sure of the wording of the rumor. So please continue to PM or email me any rumor you have, just understand that there is no way I can respond to every PM. And right now I’m a bit behind even in the ones I will be responding to.
After the Contact link comes the very important FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). If you have not read the FAQ, please do.
Next is a link to the GlitterGirl and TwinkleToes blog, which I’ve been sporadically posting to. Then you’ll see the very important Poll Results page showing the results of all of the Polls that I’ve put up that have been closed. Each is marked at the bottom to tell where it came from and/or the date the poll closed.
Last in this section we have a guide to the Rumor Ratings I sometimes use to rate the rumors, and a scorecard I created to keep track of R4 and R5 rumors. I haven’t updated it with the rumors from the most recent cycle, I’ll try to get that done soon, too.
Next you’ll see a link to posts I’ve made that I feel are of interest to people across time. Articles about how the matching room works and when adoptions are final in China and what I thought the backlog was the last time I figured it. A new entry in this section is the “Series Listings” section. Subjects like Chinese New Year and Adult Adoptees and Baby Gear. You can find all of the posts from those series by following the Series Listing link under Important Posts.
The next section is for Links outside of this site. First the link for Bright Outlooks, followed by a couple of CCAA pages of interest. If you haven’t read through their Requirements and Rules pages then the next time you have some spare time you might want to do so. There is also a link to a map of the provinces in China.
The next site is an attachment site that I highly recommend. I think that all parents who are adopting an institutionalized child should spend some time there before traveling. Attachment is best formed during periods of stress, and the first couple of weeks are incredibly stressful for all involved. Don’t blow this wonderful chance you have of forming bonds because you figured you’d read about attachment strategies if you thought there were problems. I’ve never talked to anyone who read up on attachment ahead of time who said it was a waste of time. But I know a lot of people who wish they had read up on it ahead of time because they missed some important red flags that they would have known about if they had only educated themselves about it first.
And last in this section is MandarinTools.com. When you get your referral packet I recommend that you go here to listen to the proper way to say your child’s name. Type in the pinyin word and tell it that it’s pinyin, you’ll see a list of meanings and the Mandarin characters will be shown. Find the one that looks like the character on your paperwork and click it – you’ll hear the word being said. Tone is important. If they sound ticked off when they say it then you must sound ticked off. If they say it in a singsong voice then you must try to match that sing song tone. You’ll also see the translation of your child’s name by doing this. Sometimes the literal translation gives you a good idea of the actual translation, but most times you’ll want to run it by someone who is fluent in Mandarin to get the correct translation. (Be aware that some names are in Cantonese and not Mandarin, though the vast majority are in Mandarin.)
Next is a list of categories I mentioned above. If you just want to see the posts about referral announcements then click on that category. If you want to see a list of posts about The Wait, then click on that category. If you are looking for an analysis I’ve recently done then click on Analysis. If you want to see Book Reviews then click on that.
Eclipse comes out June 30th. I wasn’t aware the trailer had been released, but the kids were talking about it in GlitterGirl’s dance class.
–
BBC America will begin airing season two of Being Human on July 25, they have a sneak peak clip up:
–
And the one I really can’t wait for, True Blood, is tentatively scheduled to premier Season Three in June.
–
We don’t get season five of Dexter until September, though.
–
Oh, one more movie to talk about: Alice in Wonderland. I think I’m going to see if my parents will watch TwinkleToes while we take GlitterGirl to see it this weekend. Common Sense Media rates it as “iffy for 10 to 11″, but from what I’ve heard, the movie is fairly accurate to the book, and she’s read the book, so I think she should be okay with the movie. Maybe. She is sensitive to violence, and there are warnings about the violence, and that’s mainly what has me on the fence.
Here are two of the trailers for Alice.
Have you seen Alice in Wonderland? Did you take your kid(s)? How old were they, and how did they deal with it? What age range would you think would be appropriate?
There is a review of the film here. Here are a few snippets from the review:
————————-
There is an abundance of great films about a child lost in an alien culture, emblematic of the universal stranger-in-a-strange-land syndrome, to the tune of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”
From “The Wizard of Oz” to “Live and Become,” survival in a different, potentially hostile, world has been a meaningful subject.
The latest addition to the genre, Stephanie Wang-Breal’s brilliant “Wo ai ni [I love you] Mommy” is a documentary about an American adoption from China. It is more compelling and memorable than many a feature film.
————————-
————————-
… If the film’s main subject came along, you would see a “normal 11-year-old American” called Faith.
At the opening of the film, it’s a very different situation: Faith is an eight-year old orphan, with a clubfoot, in Guangzhou, her name is Fang Sui Yong. Bewildered and petrified, she is facing a strange woman who came all the way from Long Island to adopt her and take her “home.”
The American, almost as stressed as the young girl, is Donna Sadowsky.
————————-
————————-
For the girl, a veteran of orphanages and a Chinese foster family, this first meeting with what she identifies as a “white person” is traumatic, and in the audience feelings range from censure of what’s happening to fervent hope that the Chinese orphan and the American do-gooder ride off into a blissful life. What follows is a fascinating journey, unexpected turns and developments, all with documentary veracity but with the sense of a great novel.
It’s amazing that a young, first-time director would capture both the reality and the truth of the encounter of people, the clash of cultures.
————————-
The film is scheduled to premier at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival on Sunday, March 14. PBS has it scheduled to air August 31st of this year. I hope there will be another way to watch this film between now and then. I’ve embedded the trailer below.
And now for my thoughts about allowing your adoption to be the subject of a documentary. To be honest, I’m torn. Was the child asked if TV cameras could follow her around and document her journey? Her experiences? How does she feel about it now? Does she feel her privacy has been taken from her? Or, perhaps her family gave her the option of whether the film could be made public, and she agreed to it? There is too much I don’t know, so I’ll just say that it makes me uncomfortable, and that I hope Faith is okay with her story being made public in this manner.
The review department must be smokin’ right now. I’m told that the Box has changed again to show that those with LID’s through April 30, 2009, have now been reviewed.
Example #1:
8 month old girl with cleft palate shows up on the list. Under the old rules, she would have been more likely to be adopted by someone not yet logged in, which would mean she could easily stay in the orphanage another year, and be 20 months, almost two years old, before coming home. Under the new rules, it’s more likely that she’ll be closer to 12 to 14 months old before coming home.
Example #2:
2 year old girl with spina bifida shows up on the list, and her file requires that for the first month her file can only be locked by a family who is already logged in. There is a family who is just starting out who would be interested, should their agency tell them about her, but they can’t lock her file so the agency plans to wait four days before the end of the month to talk to this family about her. Three weeks later, someone who is logged in hears about this child from their agency, talks to a doctor, and decides to adopt her. The family not yet logged in misses out, but they don’t know they’ve missed out. And, most importantly, the child gets to travel home with her family in a few months’ time, not a year later. And take it from someone who has brought home a very young child and an almost two year old – that extra time spent in an institution is huge. Any child who has any chance at all of spending six to eight months less in an institution, should be given that chance.
Example #3:
18 month old boy with an unrepaired heart issue shows up on the list. Someone not logged in yet has told their agency this is exactly the type of child they are hoping to adopt, but they can’t lock his file or claim him for a month. The agency tells the family about him five days before the month is up, they do their research and tell the agency they wish to adopt him. At the end of the month the agency locks his file and the family submits LOI, and four months later they are logged in. The child does not wait any longer to have someone come get him – the only change was that the family had to wait one month to lock his file and claim him. Their time frame for traveling is not extended out by one month, the wait is not one month longer for either the family or the child.
I am having a hard time coming up with an example where the new rules / guidelines could in any way be detrimental to the children.
We still do not know for sure how this is going to work in practice. Most agencies think only the easy to place children will only be available to those logged in for the first month, but others say it will be all children. Either way, I can’t see that it will change the travel time if a not-yet-logged-in family manages to lock the child in a month later. If they are not yet logged in, then that stage of the wait is determined by them (and their social worker, and USCIS), not CCAA.
As for some of the questions asked yesterday:
I’m sorry some agencies are interpreting the rules so that families must talk to a doctor before the agency will lock a file, or that they are being forced to make an instantaneous decision without time to do proper research. I am almost positive I’ve seen it said, something from the CCAA, that their intention is to give families time to make their decision, and that is what the 48/72 hour time frame is for, so the family can make an informed decision with the help of medical professionals. They understand it is in the best interests of the children if the families have their eyes wide open when they obligate themselves to a particular child. Not being allowed the time to do proper research to be sure they are prepared to handle a particular child’s special needs is not in anyone’s best interest.
As for how many files an agency can lock in – that depends on how many clients they have, doesn’t it? They can lock one child at a time for each client. Most agencies have their families fill out a list of what they feel they can handle and what their preferences are, and then when the list comes out they have it in their minds what they are looking for (age, gender, and special need), and then they attempt to lock the files for any child who fits what someone is looking for.
If you are already logged in and you are staying with the same agency, then you have a LID. If you started in the NSN line and are switching to the SN program, then your original LID will remain, and your agency can use that information to lock a child’s file for you.
And finally, only the agencies can access the list. I am aware that some agencies let a client sit in a chair beside them and go through the list, if their agency happens to be local to them, However, in most cases what happens is you fill out a form of what special needs you feel your family could handle, and then the agency either locks a file for you to look over (if you are wanting a child with a minor special need), or (for a more major issue) may talk to you about several children on the list (who have been on the list for a while) and let you talk it over with your family before deciding to lock a file and put in a LOI.
