The rumor is the next cut-off is October 25th, which is pretty much what we expected. One European agency has the information on their website; I’ll give this a strong R3 at the moment, but it won’t take much to move it higher.

If you’re expecting a referral this time around, or you’re in another program and want to share your news, please list blog name and blog URL in the comments.

And if you’re still waiting, please click here to vote in the latest LID poll. I’ll close the poll once we begin seeing phone calls. If you’ve already voted, please do not vote again.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s Projections post, the CCCWA seems to be holding fairly steady with their average number of LID’s per month, when computed over the past five or six years. Month to month it’s drastically different, but when viewed longer term, it’s been between three and six days, on average, for six years — and if you average all six years you end up with 4.8 days per month.

We’ve done this exercise (below) a few times before, but it seems it’s timely to do it again, after yesterday’s discussion of LID’s per month and year.

I believe the best predictor for those who are within one to five months of a referral is still the polls. Only by knowing which days are heavy and which are light do I think we can come close with a short term prediction.

However, for those who are more than five or six months away from a referral, I believe days referred per month is probably fairly accurate, or as accurate as we’re likely to get for a long term projection. It doesn’t work if you’re close because log-in-days aren’t uniform for number logged in per day.

Which brings us to the actual exercise. In the table below, the numbers in the column headers represent the number of days you believe the CCCWA will refer per month, on average. The labels in the first column represent the month referrals will arrive. The dates populating the table represent the LID cut off for that month based on the average number of days in the column’s header. If your date is greyed out you should probably use the Projection charts, not this exercise. Assuming the CCCWA keeps to a similar number of babies referred per month.

To use the chart you need to decide how many days you think the CCCWA will refer per month on average between now and your referral, and then go down that column until you find your LID (or the date most immediately after your LID, as the dates represent cut-off-dates). Once you have your date, look to the left and see when your referral will arrive if the CCCWA does indeed average that number of days per month.

The blue highlighted cells show the cut-off dates if your LID is 12/8/06. For eight day batches the cut-off would be close to September of this year, while six day batches would mean something closer to November.

If your LID is 4/1/07 then average eight day batches would mean a referral in the vicinity of November 2014, while six day batches would push you to June of 2015.

Which column should you use? That’s the question, isn’t it? As attrition takes more and more people from the program, at some point you’d think the numbers have to go up. We’ve seen them raise a little, but logic tells me the near future should begin to show significant raises in LID’s per month and year. Unfortunately, as the CCCWA decreases the number of babies allowed into the international program each year, there are no guarantees the average will climb.

One final note on the graphic above: The red font cells show when the wait will reach ten years.

It’s possible attrition will mount until we begin to see two weeks of LID’s per month before we hit the ten year mark, but unless the CCCWA begins to refer at least a month of LID’s every month, it will eventually happen. We heard the wait would never reach two years, then it would never reach three years, then five years. We’re nearing the six and a half year point, does anyone really want to insist the wait will never reach ten years?

Too many times we’ve seen the poll numbers drop dramatically, and assumed the CCAA/CCCWA would be able to refer more LID’s per batch, only to see them drastically drop the number of babies referred.

The coming months don’t represent a dramatic jump, but only time will tell whether the CCCWA will keep the number of babies referred per month at the same level, or the log-in-days referred per batch the same.

I want to be clear that we have two very defined paths, plus an unknown number of paths the CCCWA could take that we can’t see. I’m concentrating on the two paths we can see, and trying to give you a snapshot of what those two trajectories could look like, depending on what the CCCWA is using as a constant. Logic would tell us the number of babies available would be the defining factor, but so far it appears to be a combination: LID’s per day and thus babies per month, with an eye towards what the average LID’s per month will be at the end of the year.

If you haven’t yet voted in the latest LID Poll, please click here to do so.

I’ve gone off on a few tangents with this projections post, so it isn’t entirely in the format everyone is likely used to by now.

The first chart shows the size (in poll numbers) of the previous batches and this batch. Please remember each poll has to stand by itself, you can’t compare numbers from different polls. We can still get an idea of how the sizes of the batches have gone, but you can’t do a direct comparison.

I’ve added some average figures in recent months, to better explain how I use a weighted average instead of specific poll numbers. I’ve made a slight change this month, to show the average for 2010 and 2011, instead of the average from those years forward. This better shows the difference in referrals from those years to the current rate.

Next, we’ll take a look at how reality has looked in hindsight with the projections. The graph below shows where past referral batches have fallen on my projections — the X shows where the actual referrals fell. In those cases where I’ve added a new column and things would have looked different had that column been in place at the time, I’ve used a ~ to show where they would have fallen on the new column.

The upcoming days don’t have as many people logged in as recently referred days, which means we can hope to cover more days with the next several batches. Should the CCCWA referral similar numbers of babies as in recent months, we can hope to make it through 9 days with the next batch, then 10, 4, and 9, meaning we could theoretically make it through a month in the next four months. If you take a look at the histories page, you’ll note on March 3, 2008 the CCAA referred through 1/4/6. We are now five years later and the CCAA/CCCWA has covered 288 days of referrals, which averages out to 58 days per year, or 4.8 days per month.

Here’s a breakdown of referrals per year beginning in March 2005, to the present:

Comparing poll numbers and actual LID’s per year, it becomes apparent the CCCWA is attempting to keep the log-in-days referred per year fairly consistent. The one low figure didn’t make sense, so I took a look at the CCCWA Fiscal year:

My guess is they hoped to keep the average 4 days per month beginning in 2009, but dropping the number of referrals so low — once more people dropped out a few years later — was counter to other requirements.

At some point, as more and more people drop out of the program, one would think the log-in-days per month will need to go back up. If they can manage 32 LID’s in the next four batches, and continue to average around 31 days between referrals, it will mean an AVG LID of 8 per month for those four months. I’ll put together an exercise tomorrow to show the difference those two extra days a month could mean for those of you farther out in the wait.

My question at this point is going to be whether they drop their numbers to keep the average at 6, or keep similar referral numbers and allow them to go up. They can always give one or two really low months to keep the figure low. Time will tell, as always.

Here are the projections:

 
You can always find your way back to the Projections and When posts by clicking on the Analysis category in the lower right hand column.

I’ll end this with my standard disclaimer: As always, projections are based on the CCCWA continuing to do what they’ve been doing. There’s no way of knowing if they’ll continue to follow recent behavior. They could choose to do a lot less, or a lot more.

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New LID poll: If you’re still waiting and expect to accept your referral when it finally arrives, go here to record your LID.

The last 12 referral batches arrived at 35, 26, 28, 32, 24, 27, 37, 32, 31, 35 and 27 day intervals.

The shortest time frame is 24 days, the longest is 38. We see 27, 32, and 35 twice.

The average over the last year is 31 the median is 32. If we throw out the two highest and lowest the average is still 31 and 32. If we look at the last six months… 32 and 32. The past three months is 31 and 31.

Looking at the numbers, the soonest we’d expect to see them this month would be Friday, March 22, the latest would be Monday, April 08. The most likely date of arrival, based on the numbers, is either Friday March 29th or Monday April 1st.

Here are the families with a referral this month:

• A Time For Everything

The following families in other programs would like to share their happy news!

Congrats!

If you’re expecting a referral this time around, or you’re in another program and want to share your news, please list blog name and blog URL in the comments.

And if you’re still waiting, please click here to vote in the latest LID poll.

It’s looking like the cut-off is likely the 19th. This was the least positive projection, so it’s expected, if disappointing.

Congrats to everyone included this month. If you expect to be included in this batch, or you’re in another program and want to share your news, please list blog name and blog URL in the comments.