Back to the (not) 4,000 Dossiers
I thought I made it clear that I didn’t give any weight to the 4,000 dossiers in October thing… much less the the 11/05 in 11/07 rumor. I had over a dozen emails from people asking me if this could be true, so I reported it so that I could discount it as “not very likelyâ€. That is why it was there, it was being talked about so I needed to address it. And I did, and I discounted it PLUS gave it an R1. The lowest possible rumor rating that means I’m giving it zero weight.
And yet someone posted it on APC as if I were treating it as a legitimate rumor.
No wonder some people think I’m such a flake.
Here is a link to testimony to the Senate, saying that 2,000 dossiers were received in the month of October:
http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2006/AtwoodTestimony060608.pdf
If you don’t want to download the pdf, here is a screenshot of the relevant part. The yellow marker part is my emphasis.
In case ya’ll haven’t noticed, I’m really getting annoyed at people who report things to make it look like I’ve said something that I did not say.
Anyway, back to the point. October is big. By most accounts it is bigger than May and June were. It may not take quite as long to get through it though, because there are more people, new office with more space, etc. But, if there aren’t more paper ready babies, it won’t matter how many new people they hired.
It’s an unknown for those logged in after September. A scary unknown. There is no need to make it scarier than it already is.
August 15th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
Thank you RQ for posting this…I know you gave it the original rumor the lowest possible rating, but I really think families will feel better being able to view this screenshot.
August 15th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Well, as a Nov 10 lid this is pretty freaky. Although, when we received our lid, I did feel like it might be lucky to be in the early part of the month. Guess so…every day counts!
August 15th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
RQ,
Sorry for your frustration! I think you do a great job and are very clear about what is a rumor, what’s not, speculations and so on. I look forward to reading your blog everyday (a few times!) LID 9/2
August 15th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
Sorry RQ that sucks that someone posted a R1 especially on APC. Hang in there.
CC
7/27/05 LID
August 15th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
RQ~~ Keep your chin up girlfriend and know that there are a lot of people that are loyal fans who would be lost without you. For anyone else that just wants to purposefully start trouble, get a life! For others who don’t understand what the adjectives “possible, maybe, R1,etc.” means as it relates to rumors, don’t be posting them elsewhere because it hurts adoptive parents that are already going through enough heartache!
August 15th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Geez, RQ, are you wondering why you even bother to do this right about now? I thought you were pretty clear that it was just an R1, and you had discounted it. Sorry you’re dealing with that.
August 15th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Don’t worry, those of us who are part of both the RQ & APC know the real deal about where all the good info comes from : ) I don’t even go to APC that much anymore now that I’ve found this site.
August 15th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Some people just read what they want to read no matter what you put around it…..
On a different not, I have only been in the process a short time, so perhaps I’m not seeing this correctly. But, I would think that hiring new staff could really help the situation. Only four months of Dossiers have reached the matching room (October, September, August and July). While 8 + months of dossiers are waiting to be reviewed in Department 1. If the problem is MOSTLY the lack of paper ready children, wouldn’t the numbers be the other way around?
August 15th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
You lost me lilbug – in November of 2005 the CCAA site said they had finished reviewing through May, and had placed through March.
Right now they have finished reviewing through October and have placed through 7/13.
So, in 9 months the review room has reviewed 5 months (really 6 since they should be changing the site for reviewed any day now) and the matching room has matched 4.5 months.
So the Review room is reviewing faster than the matching room is matching them.
August 15th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
HI,
I read your site a million times a day but don’t post much. I agree that you are awesome and I don’t know what I would do without you. Who cares what APC says. Just think of your self as a celebrity, you know how the celebrities are always misquoted. We know what you mean and that is all that counts.
Thanks for everything!!! You are a superstar, can we have your autograph?
August 15th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
But RQ….you are my Delhpi oracle. If I can’t take your 1R for Fact, there is no certainty in life anymore……
August 15th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
……yet another reason I don’t read APC on a daily basis! Usually, I only go there once referrals are posted!!! Thanks RQ for all that you do!
August 15th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Dept 2 (matching room) has July (1/2), August, September, October (3 1/2 months). They possibly have part of November, which would make that 4 months, but you could also speculate that they are ABOUT to release the rest of July, which would make it 3 1/2 again. So, since November and after a month of not sending out any referrals, they are only holding 1 1/2 more months.
Dept 1 has part of November 05 through part of August 06 on their desks (9 months).
I’m just stating there are only a few months of dossiers at any one time waiting around to be matched. If there were 9 months of dossiers approved and waiting, instead of 3 1/2, I would be more apt to worry that the MAIN problem is a shortage of paper ready children.
Hopefully now that the children from the Hunan province seem to be becoming eligible again, the matching room will have more paper ready children and speed things up. I’m afraid they would quickly run into a problem with not have paper-ready applicants, if things don’t change in Dept 1 as well, however.
August 15th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
From what my agency told me a couple of months ago, May, June and July each had close to 2000 dossiers and that is what is slowing down referrals – not policy change, not intentional slowdown, not moving or vacations, nothing. It’s just a numbers game. They also said it may take 3 months to get through July because of that – keep in mind they said “might”.
August 15th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
Just a question: how long did it take October to get through review room? I’ve got the impression that it hasn’t been that long for such a huge amount of dossiers… Am I wrong?
August 15th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
RQ,
You do a great job here and I read your site daily!! I don’t often post but I just keep thinking about October being so big. My agency sends dossiers weekly, they have one LID in Sept and all the rest of Sept and all of Oct ( but the very end ) are LID October. So did CCAA receive 2000 dossiers in October or did they just not log many in Sept and caught up logging Sept and Oct in October??? If my theory is possibly reality , then they are really trying to match two months worth of dossiers received in one months LIDs.
Thoughts anyone??
August 15th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
RQ, just want to add my voice to the accolades. You give the MOST thorough and relevant info availble. WE, your loyal subjects, know who to listen to and HOW to listen correctly. You keep going…we need you.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
Based on my agency sending dossiers weekly, it looks like the CCAA just wasn’t logging many in last September. Their only LID for the Sept month is for a batch of dossiers sent in August. All of the Sept batches sent and two weeks of Octobers are all logged in October. So wouldn’t that support my theory that they didn’t receive 2000 in one month they logged in 2000 in one month???
I know your thinking whats the difference, its still 2000 to get through. Well the difference is, September should go fast!!
September shouldn’t take as long to get through making up a little for October taking some time to get through.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
Thanks again RQ for clarifying what really shouldn’t have needed clarifying. We are all filled with such a sense of doom that the bad stuff seems to send us for a loop even if it is unconfirmed. A truly evil person could have a field day starting horrid rumors to torture us. (Could they be worse than the reality though??) (Is this already happening??) Ugh
On another note, my big China-only agency sent us an email filled with the usual blah-blah-blah about referrel times, BUT they did say that they expected the CCAA to post soon that they are done reviewing November.
-akina
LID 3/29
August 15th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
It has come to my attention lately that many people simply do not listen. For example: I saw a situation recently (not on here) where a person got a whole group of people really upset by saying their agency told them the wait would be two years. People were crying, cussing, etc…
What the person was REALLY told was that the adoption process can take up to two years: that’s for application, homestudy, immigration, etc… But they heard two years and reported it as the “wait”…….and freaked a bunch of people out.
The problem is that people do NOT listen (or truely pay attention to what they are hearing/reading). It’s a pet peeve of mine. The other part of the problem is that even IF the person reports the rumor correctly, the people then reading it don’t always truely read it. It was very obvious from your post that you gave the 4,000 rumor very little credibility. I’m not on APC, so I don’t know if the person who reported it there reported it as an unlikely rumor and then the next person in line is the one that freaked out or what….but the problem is the same. Lack of listening.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
I just thought of another example:
How many of us have seen someone freak out because “China is running out of babies” after hearing that there aren’t enough paper ready infants? More times then I can count. They just don’t really understand the difference and then start telling people that they heard China doesn’t have any more babies.
It’s scary, really. That is why I imagine it is so hard to maintain this site: it’s nearly impossible to know if the rumor you receive was from someone that actually understand exactly what was being said, or someone that didn’t really understand.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Remember the discussion a while back about getting agencies to post info here instead of being silent? This is exactly why. There will be people like the ones who posted on APC, going wild with unsubstantiated rumors. There will always be those who mis-quote, jump the gun, read what they want to read instead of what is really there, the agencies would go crazy. I know most of the ‘regulars’ of this site know better and would never do that, but the casual visitor to this site could be the one to ruin it for all of us who play by the rules.
lilbug, I see what your saying, I think it makes a lot of sense.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
IRL – that’s why I usually get info from multiple people before I post it. There are some “regulars” that I will post info from with only one person, but most of the time if you see it on the blog it has come to me more than once (often a lot more than once).
lilbug, but the review room is reviewing faster than the matching room is matching. That means that they are making it through the batches faster than the matching room, which is what you’d expect if the matching room were being slowed down by a lack of paper ready babies.
Also, there was a rumor a while back that the review room was trying to go as fast as they could so people wouldn’t have to wait so long to be denied (if in fact there were going to be denied).
August 15th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Just a thought- why would CCAA be hiring more people and moving to a bigger location if they thought they were going to be referring fewer and fewer children. What would they do all day- if only a few children are paper ready? Unless domestic adoptions have become so popular that this is what is really keeping them busy- but I just do not think it has gotten to that point yet.
I have no doubt that one of the delays could be less paper ready children- but I keep thinking- unless there was some plan in mind to do something to overcome this issue- why would they bother hiring more people and moving to a bigger space?
Any thoughts ?
Jennifer 5/29
August 15th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
RQ,
Thanks so much for what you do! This is my first post, but have been lurking for quite a while (and too many times a day). Am so impressed with the extent of your research, as well as your honesty and humor.
Question- latest rumor on the SAC board is that a large agency said that 2007 would cut out single applicants. Any R’s on that one?
To everyone else…. any room left under that rock?
August 15th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Sorry for the semi duplicate posting earlier!! I thought the first one didn’t make it!!
August 15th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
mcwannab – yes, that rumor is out there, we’ve talked about it a little on the forum.
mom23boys – last fall the CCAA took over a lot of new responsibilities. They used to be in charge of the orphanages that are in the IA program, they are now in charge of all orphanages and all foster programs in China. I remember seeing a list somewhere of many of their new responsibilities (wish I could remember where), and I’d imagine they would need a lot of space and a lot of people just to manage all of the non-IA parts of their responsibilities.
August 15th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
irl-
i couldn’t have said that better myself had I wanted to…lol
indeed there are some people that read and hear things…but don’t really “listen” or just basically get what they want out of what’s being said.
or basically just don’t get it anyways. lol
August 15th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
Mcwannab-
PLEASE say it isn’t so!!!!! I really want my daughter to have a sister and I honestly don’t care how long I would have to wait for #2! What is SAC? Anyone???? Anybody else hear anything about the singles being eliminated in 2007?
For the love of God, we only take up 8% of the applicants as it is. Why not people with size 10 feet? Or maybe excessive nostril hair? Or a stamp collection? I mean REALLY….how much could cutting us out of the process in the future do to decrese the numbers??????
I am SOOOOOOOO upset about this even being a possibility. %*@$#&*
Laureen
August 15th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
Mom2Isabel
I am a single who has been offered a place in the 2007 quota with an agency and can sign the contract and begin the paperwork in December. We’re waiting on what happens in November as to whether the CCAA will announce any new restrictions. My agency, as well as 3 other large agencies, 2 of which are large China-only agencies, have told me they have not heard anything about singles being eliminated and don’t believe that will happen. They are concerned that there will be fewer couples and therefore since singles are a percent of the couples, fewer singles. They have been given informal communication that a new weight restriction will come into play for new dossiers (not those already logged in), but have heard NOTHING about eliminating singles. I could have gotten logged in by November and gone with my agency with 2006 and was concerned they would eliminate singles, but wanted to hold off b/c I am new at my company and if the wait remains at 12 – 13 months, I would only get a week maternity leave whereas I’d get 3 additional weeks by logging in next February or March. The agency felt comfortable enough that singles wouldn’t be eliminated to advise me that they thought it wouldn’t be a problem to wait. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but at this point I am not putting alot of weight to rumors that singles will be eliminated.
August 15th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
Mom2Isabel-SAC is the “single adopt china” list…kind of APC for singles… you can also read the thread in the forum on rumors about new restrictions to see the previous discussion. I’m single also and yes this makes me nervous, but lets not panic yet, we’re not really sure what will happen.
August 15th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
Mom2Isabel~ excessive nostril hair, stamp collectors? Well, maybe you have a point. But not the size 10 footed folks (OK, so I have big feet)
RQ: I would also like to say that I really appreciate the cosiderable time you expend on this site. It is a lifesaver. I have read posts on my DTC site, occasionally, who bash you. But, most of the time I’ve found that those are people who don’t visit this site. They’re just “not going to listen to the rumors” –There is one poster in the 1/06 group who insists she will be receiving her referral by 10/05 and be traveling before Christmas. She refuses to believe any different. I’m fine with that and certainly not going to burst her bubble, if that’s what helps her wait then fine. But I would rather have as much of the most reliable info available so I can plan my life as much as possible here in the real world.
Thank you so much. My only real concern as far as the RQ goes is what will happen to us after your little mei mei comes along? Is there a Rumor Queen in Waiting available?
August 15th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
Make that 10/06 that she expects her referral, sorry.
August 15th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
Most R1 rumors go to the forum instead of the blog, I usually only bring them over here if they are being widely talked about and need to be addressed.
The “no more singles” rumor is still an r1, and not a lot of people have known about it so far, so it’s on the forum.
Don’t panic about it yet.
August 15th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Mom2Isabel -
SAC is Single Adopt China – there is a Yahoo group. Remember that everything we are reading is…RUMORS! Unless it is substantiated, don’t worry.
BTW, first time poster. RQ, you are doing a great job. Love the new rating system.
I am LID 11/1, but was DTC end of September. I was in a group of dossiers supposedly misplaced for the October festivals and “re-found” end of Oct/first of Nov.
The OctDTC group is in the process of doing a dossier check – asking people to report from their agencies how many dossiers were sent for Oct. No one on that site believes the 4000 rumor – in fact, aren’t sure where that came from.
I am confident that my referral will be received by April 07 (that gives me some leeway and I will then be HAPPY if/when my referral comes earlier.) THIS IS NOT A PREDICTION! MY AGENCY DID NOT TELL ME ANYTHING TO SUBSTANTIATE THIS! (In fact, my director is still hoping…get that?…hoping for a referral by the end of this year for me. She has not heard anything to back that up – hasn’t heard one way or the other – but she is hoping for me.)
RQ, keep up the good work…okay, I’ll go back to lurking now.
August 15th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Pam- thanks for the info about SAC.
Rumorslave- Hey, fellow size 10er here! As a teenager, my footsize, my grade and my height all matched from grade 6 on. Sixth grade, 5’6″, size 6 feet. Seventh grade, 5’7″, size 7 feet. Can’t even BEGIN to let you how elated I was that the pattern stopped my sophomore year. I had images runnng through my head of Sasquatch getting her college degree!!!!
: )
August 15th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
I just wanted to add something about September log in dates. I was DTC 9/16 and logged in 9/26. I couldn’t believe it was only 10 days later. So to me, something was going right last September. I was thrilled.
August 15th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
I quess my question would be, if domestic adoption has picked up in China, are Chinese adoptive parents allowed to adopt from any SWI including those that are for IA. I mean, if there are only so many orphanages for IA and those babies have to go through a different paper process does it matter if they are going to be adopted domestically? I hope this makes since. Believe me, I am happy to see domestic adoption picking up in China. I think this is great for the children. I am just confussed to think that there are only so many orphanages that are in the IA program.
August 15th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
>Just a question: how long did it take October to get through >review room? I’ve got the impression that it hasn’t been that >long for such a huge amount of dossiers… Am I wrong?
Hi there, I think it was 58 days in review. I believe that it was 4 days longer than June was in review, but I could stand to be corrected on that.
Snick :)
August 16th, 2006 at 12:35 am
sheltiehome – are you a canuck?
We too were DTC end of september and logged in beginning of November. I was also told about the ‘festivities’ delaying our LID. We are now in the waiting child program, where there are apparently no shortage of waiting files. That said, that does not neccasarily mean we will be referred any faster (which is unfortunate for the sake of the children those waiting child files represent).
August 16th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
RQ:
You are not a flake and anyone who thinks you are should be ashamed of themselves. I don’t know what we would do without you. You are now my husband and my sole source of information. Nothing you say in your posts is unclear or misleading in my opinion. Thank you so much for all you do!!
LID 26 July 2006
August 16th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Sorry, LID is actually 26 July 2005