Another list of info
This is going to be pretty random, but it’s the quickest way to do this, so here goes.
- Someone notes that their agency (one of the big ones) tells her that they have never had anyone rejected due to their weight.
- Someone informed me that some of the recent denials were brought up at the recent adoption conference in DC. Apparently they discussed two cases in detail, and the discussion ended with the agencies feeling that in these two cases the CCAA’s concern extended beyond issues of being wheelchair bound or being overweight, and that there were other circumstances involved.
- I am now aware of three cases of a family being denied for weight, and I know that in one of these cases the wife weighed over 300 pounds.
- I am told that one agency is telling their people to try to send pictures that make them look as thin as possible. Not that they should manipulate photos, but that they should attempt to get as flattering a photo as possible, one that downplays how heavy they are.
- Someone tells me that they have been told that the large numbers of dossiers is allowing the CCAA to be more selective, and that they are reviewing the dossiers a lot more carefully.
- Another person says that their agency has been told by the CCAA that it is going to take 3 months, maybe 4, to get through a months worth of LIDs. This is a very reliable agency, BTW.
- Agencies have received their appraisal letters from CCAA. Some agencies have posted copies on their websites and many others have notified their clients that they recieved a favorable appraisal. I’m thinking that if your agency hasn’t let you know that they received one then maybe you should be asking them about it.
- Someone mentions a (very) minor transgression that happend when they were 18. When they applied to their agency they were told no problem. They’ve just checked with them again and have been told that it may be an issue but they won’t know for sure until the new guidelines come out.
- One of the big agencies says that the CCAA is now talking about putting another quota into place. It sounds like this would be closer to the end of the year though, if it happens.
My take on all of this is that several agencies are expecting to see new guidelines issued, and some of them have at least an idea of what to expect.
As for the wait, if you haven’t contacted your congress people, please consider doing so.
I’ve read through the comments and it looks like the vast majority of you acted with grace and tact to a couple of people who did not. I am way way way lucky to have ya’ll as readers and commenters.
May 29th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Hi RQ! Just wanted to let you know that one of our Dutch agencies have told someone on a intake today, that the waittime will go up to at least 18 months!! I won’t believe this, but perhaps I should?! We know that this agency is always very carefully with information and that they mostly tell information wich is less positive but than it could go otherwise. Just for them to be save so they don’t have to disappoint people….
May 29th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Someone on the ‘weight’ thread made a prediction about quotas starting at the end of 06. I thought she was dead on in her prediction — and she tied it to the olympics, as a quota at that point would serve to keep things very “tidy” ( i.e, no embarrassing IA) by spring 08 or so. Just in time for the world stage in summer 08.
and now an agency is saying the same thing.
the scariest rumor for me was the one about each LID month taking 3-4 months to get through.. ok, we all accept that this was the case with may, and now june as well. but if it continues to take 3-4 months to get through one LID month, it’ll only take a few months for the wait to stretch to 18 months. Then by winter/spring it’ll be close to 2 years. i hope this rumor got butchered in translation and the agency only meant to say ‘ for the next month or 2′, not indefinitely.
May 29th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
I was just at my Agency’s picnic. Our case manager said she thought the wait would go to 14 months and then back to twelve. My Agency did hear things about weight restrictions but just said it is not valid yet and they feel it will not effect people who are already logged in. My Agency is mid size but I must say they will never give any information out unless they have the facts. In a way that is a good thing but also you always feel they may know more. I guess will wait and see what CCAA is going to say and hope it is not so bad. I am sending letters to Senators and hope we get some kind of a response. Just to think if it takes CCAA 3-4 months per month to get out referrals were looking out another year! OUCH! Hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day!
May 29th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
So about the “minor transgression that happened when he/she was 18…” Could this really be a problem? Do people like me who have a “drinking under age” from when I was in HIGH SCHOOL need to be worried now? Does anybody know when the new guidelines will be put in place? (I know this has been discussed before but I can’t seem to remember the details). Now I’m really starting to freak out.
-WFY
May 29th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Some agencies are expecting “something” in the next couple of weeks. Whether this is a statement about the wait or something about new guidelines varies, depending on which agency is talking.
Other agencies haven’t heard anything about something that will be released in the near future.
Other agencies feel that there will be changes put in place towards the end of the year.
At least one agency feels that those already logged in will be safe under the old rules. But I’ve heard of many agencies feel that this may not be the case.
May 29th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
fyi-
the three posts on the CCAA site that haven’t been translated yet really doesn’t have anything to do with wait times, or weight restrictions, or anything else. It appears they are bits of three speeches given at a conference (?) in regards to donations for the orphanages and a program designed to outfit the various orphanges with better equipment, clothes, food, etc. There are thanks to ‘foreign agencies’ for their help…i think it said somewhere.
I tried using one of those online translator things so it was a bit choppy. Basically just wanted to pass on the fact that it wasn’t anything to do with the wait time or anything else. I suspect if there is anything it will come later.
hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend.
I’ve pretty much resigned myself along with the DW to say with an 8.10 LID we’ll end up getting matched somewhere between best case August and worst case December. Just depends on how it ends up playing out. 3 more months to referral…or 7.
*sigh*
May 29th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
From the Ask Jane site:
I have heard this week that the CCAA’s new building is behind schedule and move-in has been delayed, thus likely being one of the factors in some delays they are having in processing. Apparently electrical has been a nightmare for them. So, hang in there everyone and don’t panic! Blip on the radar screen.
Jane
Dr. Jane Liedtke, CEO, Our Chinese Daughters Foundation http://www.ocdf.org
May 29th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
mgdesigner - it’s good form to ask for permission to reprint someone’s email on a public blog and if you’ve done so, to state reposted with permission. We wouldn’t want anyone getting upset and sharing less info with us - not that this is necessarily the case here - but it could happen. - Just a thought.
May 29th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
MGDesigner, I believe she is putting a link to a site she is part of. Read the closing sentence again. Also, I was wondering why would they put in place new guidelines, but then not have them take effect intil Dec. ‘06 LID’s? This would mean they really wouldn’t affect anyone for 2 years at the rate they are going. If their goal is to weed out people, wouldn’t we see them effective immediately? It doesn’t make sense to me they way they are wording it. I don’t think it would be fair, however fair doesn’t even seem to be on the table anymore. If a family is to be disqualified, I just hope they would know now vs. waiting 18-24 months to be told sorry, now you don’t meet the requirements. If they aren’t going to let my family adopt another child, I just hope they tell us now and get the disappointment (devastation) over with. I’m not sure I can wait on pins and needles for another two years. They need to put it out there so people can make an informed choice about how to proceed next. They just need to rip that bandaid off instead of one hair at a time like it seems to be going. Don’t they see, we just need the TRUTH.
May 29th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
I am curious if agencies are actually seeing a decrease in applications? If the wait is really causing a decrease in applications has anyone heard about it? What are agencies going to do ? Just wondering if anyone has heard any numbers? If the longer wait isn’t working to get the number of dossiers down, is this why there is now talk of a quota and restrictions? Just my thoughts or questions.
May 30th, 2006 at 3:01 am
4 months to do a months worth of log-ins would mean for people with a LID of june 06 a 4 year wait ( assuming that there is a 12 month backlog ahead of them). That can’t be a realistic LONG-TERM prediction I hope/pray!
May 30th, 2006 at 6:25 am
wrigsassy,
Our Canadian agency just sent their largest batch of files “ever” to China. The numbers seem to be getting larger over here!
May 30th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Our agency in Canada used to average 16 files per month, but the average over the past 3 months has been 35 files per month!
May 30th, 2006 at 9:38 am
first of all I would like to thank the people that cheered me up the other day, it really worked!!!
and also my agency says they are still sending lots of documents, and that the amount of files is not get lesser.
and after seeing the info about the Chinese needing 4 referral months per LID month, I have decided that the only reason why the Chinese are still logging in is that they are convinced there will be a speed up. Because otherwise it wouldn´t make ANY sense anymore.
people that are logged in this month would have to wait four years if they go on like this, and I think that is absolutely impossible, so oddly enough, the worse the slow down gets the more I am convinced things WILL speed up at some point.
so I am actually getting optimistic!!!!
never thought that would happen:)
May 30th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Hi All,
We are still biting our nails over here with our dossier due to go next week, so hopefully no noticesw before then! To all my fellow Canadaians, can you give a hint at what agency you are with? We are with a small China only agency, and they said they send the same number of dossiers per group per month, and it has stayed fairly consistent. But they also said they definitely haven’t seen a slowdown in terms of number of people submitting! So, I agree that this wait time doesn’t seem to be deterring people yet!
I have to agree that they can’t possibly log in these dossiers at this rate if they already know that it will take them 4 months to get through each logged in month. My bet is still that the whole process was way to fast at 6 months, and now they are getting back to reality, there is really no way that they would let these thousands of dossiers pile up knowing that it would take them YEARS to get through them! They aren’t stupid people, they have been doing this quite a while, so I would still put my money on a slowdown to a certain point say 16 months and then they will hold it at that, although if they were consistent, it may get faster because it would deter people from submitting. Make sense?
May 30th, 2006 at 11:11 am
Are there any predictions about what date referrrals will get up to this month? I am LID 6/20/05 and my I171H expires in October. I can’t even get a reply from my agency (china only) - sent them an email last week about my nervousness regarding this issue. I thought we would get our referral in this next batch and now I’m not even sure about this month! Any predictions?
May 30th, 2006 at 11:16 am
Dear Elmo (heh heh, my daughter would love that!). What province are you in?
I agree with you that the CCAA is not composed of stupid people. In fact, they are quite smart and quite the strategic planners. I doubt that China would let the wait go over 18-24 months, because that wouldn’t be realistic for any country, certainly not for China.
I am believing more and more in my theory that they will stop accepting new files in December 2006, at which time the wait will be 18 months if they keep going at the slow rate they are at now. THEN, they’ll speed up to 12 months again in order to have all parents come and get their children before the olympics. In fact, I think they’d like the last travels to take place in early 2008, several months before the Olympics so that journalists focus on something else.
May 30th, 2006 at 11:33 am
whats particularly sad about the theory that files will stop being accepted at the end of 06/early 07 ( which i agree with, unfortunately) is that anyone still waiting for their child now –even if referral is imminent — will not be able to adopt a little sister from china. This was my hope once, but i no longer consider it as a possibility.
I suppose they might quietly open the program back up a year or so after the olympics, but then it’ll be, what, late 2009? 2010? I’m not getting any younger so i can’t imagine still being ‘in the game’ at that point…
May 30th, 2006 at 11:38 am
Hi eli
Yes, that’s sad for us too, because as an only child I have always dreamed of having a large family, i.e. more than 2 kids. If China shuts down, we’ll look at other Asian countries. Also, I don’t think China will shutdown the Special Needs program, and I’m more than willing to look into that.
May 30th, 2006 at 11:40 am
Anyone know/remember what South Korea did? Did they close completely around the Olympics or just slow down?
May 30th, 2006 at 11:49 am
buford-
not one to over-guess anything with this process anymore I would concede though that with a 6/20 LID you should be in the chute for June’s referral group. It would surely be a sad sad day near the end of June if they don’t make it to 6/20 (speculations for worst-case is 6/22-6/23 while most of us here are hoping for farther than that)
–
we want to adopt a second from China as well so it will be interesting to see what they end up doing around and after the Olympics. One possibility is that they don’t put the program on pause and just funnel everyone to the south-southeast part of China for adoptions. Keep everything away from Beijing and the region.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
tgredthread: The Canadian embassy is in Beijing, so we have no choice but to pass through there. I don’t think there’s a Cdn embassy anywhere else in China.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
tgredthread
Yes, like you, it has been our plan all along to adopt another child from China. I guess we will have to see what unfolds these next months/years and go from there. Best of luck to you.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Eli–my wife and I were planning the same thing — waiting the required amount of time before beginning the process of adopting our second child from China. Moving forward, I fear increased age limitations as well which might further prevent us from adopting — not that I’ve heard anything remotely suggesting this but the sort of information I’ve read about weight restriction could certainly extend to age at some point. I don’t know — a few months ago a gentleman who had spoken to the Director (I think) of the CCAA was told, pointblank, that the wait would not extend beyond 12 mos and we all sort of held to that for a while and now this… I know that politics is politics and people will say all sorts of things they can’t possibly deliver but come on… arrrghhhh. My LID is 7/26 so not sure what to do but waitwait… but it’s getting frustrating.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
I hadn’t put much weight in the olympics issue but having googled what happenned in Korea, I am more inline with y’all!
See http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2000/firstpersonplural/historical/skadoptions2.html
Basically it says that the 1988 olympic resulted in so much negative coverage that adoptions seriously reduced afterwards..as well as being suspended then. I don’t think that China will suspend per se as that might cause even more “negative publicity” but I bet they want the process to be seen as long, cumbersome and not easy to deter others. What they probably don’t want said is “adopt from China..its the fastest place to do so w/w”..which is what it was 7 months ago. Also they may not want to be seen to be increasing adoptions so significantly which is also why they may want to keep it stable, or even reduce in the period coming up to the olympics. Not at all good news.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
frustrated: I think that if China does pull the plug on international adoptions, they won’t get negative publicity at all because the spin that they will put on it, and it might be completely true, is that there is no more need for i.a. because they’ve respected their commitment to the Hague convention and made it easier for people within China to adopt. If anything, they will get positive coverage.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Tresordie…I agree so long as no journo’s/NGOs/charities etc can get into orphanages and report that there are still children there. However, I think that as there will still be children, esp SN there and as they aren’t likely to suddenly get rid of NGOs/Half the sky etc - I don’t think they will completely suspend. I think reducing the numbers, making it seem more difficult etc with the story of more domestic adoption will give them the good PR story they want to have for 2008.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
tres-
ahhh so yeah that idea is right out. I’m just trying to piece together how the Olympics would have such a negative impact on the processes.
—
I think ‘frustrated’ has a point in that I think if they totally shut it down it would cause just as much negative publicity and press. I mean how easy is it for information to get spread around to people nowadays with emails/blogs/IMs, etc. I’m sure it wouldn’t take long for a reporter or news agency to find out that China ceased IA and that there’s an uproar from us adopters.
I had been thinking more about the 12 month thing and all the rumours and posts about new ‘restrictions’ and policies, all the posts from everyone (including myself on occasion), etc. The more I think about it the more it makes sense that this has all been a way for China to get their IA program more in-line with other countries. ‘Frustrated’ said: “What they probably don’t want said is “adopt from China..its the fastest place to do so w/wâ€..which is what it was 7 months ago.” and that’s probably correct. I’m not sure what all the restrictions/requirements/policies the other countries like Korea, Russia, etc have for IA but I’m thinking compared to them, China looked realllly good. I have a feeling all this could be is to regulate the process and bring it in-line with everyone else. And we just got stuck in the middle of it. Everyone says (including the news/press) that the reason for the slowdown is the large amount of families wanting to adopt compared to the small amount of babies to be adopted. So what if China intentionally lowered the amount of children each month and will continue to regulate the amount of children each month they process/refer in order to accomplish all this? There are soooo many speculations and theories about why things happened. I think the ’smart and strategic’ people running the show have something worked out there’s just been alot going on around it that we could think or believe anything. There have been many things said about how they aren’t going to completely end IA of NSN children. And, I believe that. I just have a feeling they’re tweaking the program a bit.
but then again, it’s just thoughts and ponderings floating about in my head. who knows.
I watched the movie ‘Contact’ for the i-don’t-know-how-many-eth time a week ago and had to laugh because they mention Occam’s Razor which is something to the effect of “when you have two (or more) competing theories which make exactly the same predictions, the one that is simpler is the better”
if only it were that easy, right? :)
May 30th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Does anyone think, like I do, that all this talk/rumors about extending wait times, possible putting restrictions on, etc….has anything to do with them wanting people to switch to SN?
They did say, during their visit, that the SN program will pick up.
May 30th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
i know they were going to make things more readily accessible online and such for SN, but other than that I don’t know. don’t know if all this ‘mess’ is to get people to switch to or choose SN over NSN.
May 30th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
tgredthread - I absolutely think that they are trying to get as many people to go SN as possible. From what I’ve read, the majority of children currently in SWI’s are SN. I also think that they want to eliminate as much publicity relative to any kind of adoption as possible (SN, NSN, IA, or domestic). In their minds, they don’t want to broadcast globally (via the Olympics) the political screw-ups of the past: first when, years ago, Chairman Mao encouraged procreation as a means of “beefing up” the army and then the resulting drastic one child policy once they realized the economic effects of the population explosion. They also want to be able to “pooh-pooh” any questions relative to gender imbalance. Just my opinion.
May 30th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
I think we are right to look to other IA programs for potential insight into the trajectory of the China program; however, I would seriously hesitate to take these past trajectories as ‘bond.’ I think it is important to remember that China has a completely different developmentalist model than South Korea; one that may not see IA as contradictory, either symbolically or materially, to the country’s (already occurring) modernization.
Now … I am sitting on pins and needles about the projected announcements! Any news from anyone? I am assuming a number of us fired off semi-hysterical emails to our agencies over the weekend!
May 30th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
meghan-
oh i believe there is the wanting of more SN adoptions…i just don’t think it’s the main or only reason for what’s been going on with the wait time.
I don’t know that much about the SN program or the “politics” that go along with that… So definitely if you know more then who am I to argue? :D
I agree with your opinion totally about not trying to broadcast globally or draw attention to the past problems though, although it’s perhaps too late about the gender imbalance issue given all the news shows and documentaries (i.e. Nat’l Geos ‘China’s Lost Girls’) about it. Not to mention that anyone with a computer and internet connection can find articles and info about things in this regards.
May 30th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
Tresor- we are in Alberta, where are you? Re: Olympics, our agency told us that they think that things will shut down for around 3 mth only because we wouldn’t be able to book flights and hotels for that time period. I think that everyone is starting to panic un necessarily in terms of China shutting down. I can see them inposing things like quotas, ie: maybe eliminating singles adoptions till things slow down, and maybe putting in some tighter restrictions, but lets be realistic, there is no reason that they would close things down completely! They get a lot of financial support for the abandoned children through adoptive parents donations etc. There will continue to be children abandoned, and if they shut the program down, their orphanages would burst with so many babies! AND, they would have full orphanages and no outside funding to support them. Things could easily slow down, and the restrictions could get tighter, but it really wouldn’t make sense for them to shut down all together, I have to agree with past posts talking about how China has been viewed recently as “THE place to adopt” because of the short wait time. I think this is seen as negative, so they are merely trying to slow it down, not get rid of it all together.
I love reading the rumors, but in all honestly, rumors feed on rumors feed on rumors and everything snowballs. They take on a life of their own, its important to seriously not get emotionally attached to EVERY rumor because you will drive yourself CRAZY! I have done it myself. Its important to remember that this is a forum for talking about whats out there, but taking it all as gospel is going to make things more difficult. We should probably take a lets see approach and wait to get word from China.
May 30th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
I can’t see temporariliy eliminating singles as solving any of China’s “volume of dossiers” problem. Singles account for only 8% of dossiers…it appears China must do much more than that to solve the high numbers of applicants. Putting overall quotas in place limiting total submissions (couples and singles) makes more sense to me and tightening up on medicals, financials, criminals, weight, etc would do more to help the backlog than eliminating a small amount of dossiers from singles…just my speculation.
May 30th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
Someone on APC just reported that their SW said CCAA has a new ruling that anyone with a history of alcohol abuse must show 10 years of sobriety before being approved and that the wait time will go up to 2 years.
IF this is true-why would a SW know these new requirements and wait times and no one else know it????
Weird and more weird…
May 30th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
weird, wild shtuff indeed.
May 30th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
It does seem far fetched that a SW would know, but then again if there is something important that needs to be in cluded in the homestudy I suppose they would need to know?
May 30th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
So let me try to understand this one…wrigsassys post:
They want us to wait 24 months, to re-pay all the fees that would more than pay for any liposuction to remove the 20 pounds we are overweight according to the bmi calculator, along with not having that drink of wine to calm our nerves, but then we would be considered alcoholics…
But wait, we may all become singles due to not wanting to put up with our spouses stress and anxiety levels-so we may have a longer wait than 24 months if we are single. Don’t forget that homestudy update for $750 and the document fees, divorce dicrees, etc. We then would be lonely waiting in an empty home, so we may want to get a puppy (that may not pass our “updated homestudy poddy training test which would lead to an unhealthy home) During this time and money spent, we may run into a past friend that we knew in high school who was the beer runner and they may turn us into our agencies as having a “past alcohol issue”
Then again, we may make it through the wait with a string of our sanity and they may deny us a month before we are to get a referal because we are both too tall….
Sooooo…. adding it all up we may be better off just sitting back as we have all done and watch the rumors come crawling out of the muddy B.S. pond with statements such as “could go to 24 months but no one really knows”
Jeez, I need a glass of wine.
May 31st, 2006 at 7:06 am
Comeonstork:
Pass the bottle, my friend.