Announcing....

Daughter no 1, together with Magnolia and Nikki, (that is the three of them in the photo on the blog page) are pleased to announce the referral of twin dolls - Ming Long and Mei Ling.

They received their referral this week for Mei Ling and Ming Long - receiving number 21 of the 500 hand numbered dolls.

No kidding, it was just like a real referral - attached are the referral papers (below) and the allocation photos for the dolls - very cute and just the thing to lift our spirits during the LONG wait for the real thing.

As you can see from the photo at right our daughter is going to have her hands full caring for the 'twins' and Magnolia and Nikki.

The twins are due in late Autumn/early Winter (or late Spring/early Summer in the northern hemisphere). We can't wait - it will give us all something to cuddle until the referral of daughter number 2.

Mei Ling and Ming Long are the creation of our friend Marcia Havaris, who also created Magnolia.

The Twins can be preordered through
http://www.magnolia-wo-ai-ni.com/
(link at right)- a minimum of 5% of sales will go towards projects benefiting children in China, including in Fuling SWI - additionally Marcia donates CAD$1.11 from each sale of Twin Dolls to Children's Bridge Charitable Foundation and also CAD$1.11 from each sale of Twin Dolls to Love Without Boundaries.

7 months down!

Well, while December seemed to drag on forever, in the lead up to the six month mark; January and the lead up to 'seven months' fairly seemed to whiz by. I mean it only seems like yesterday since I last posted but when I checked it has been a week (mind you during the week, at work, things seemed to drag but then that is the strange thing about work).

So seven months it is, today!

Oh and the perennial question - how much longer? I'm hoping we are more than a quarter of the way through (anything longer than that I refuse to think about), wishfully thinking that we are more than a third of the way through, but pretty much resigned that we aren't half way through.

To think when we adopted our first daughter that at this 'point' (7 months) we would have been half-way through - and at that time I was a complete nervous wreck, thinking how we would ever survive the stress to the end. Not to mention falling to pieces when the 'rumours' at that time suggested the wait might go to 18 months (which it never did). Oh, the luxury - 18 months! - this time round I'd happily take 18 months, if you could promise it is a certainty!

Giving a gift that lasts a lifetime

Over Christmas and during our clean up after the New Year's Eve 'Great Flood' I contemplated the amount of 'stuff' you accumulate in your life- stuff that you don't fully utilise or even need and end up having to simply throw out (not to mention those consumer items with inbuilt obsolescence that are designed to be replaced regularly).

I truly appreciate the sentiment behind the gifts we were given over Christmas but there is only so many material items we need in our lives. I had suggested instead of presents that money to a charity in China could be donated but no one took us up on the suggestion (and I guess I am guilty of it to a degree also because I didn't give the such a gift to them- although most everyone got a present where the profits went to a China charity). I guess it is almost like people feel that it isn't a real present and what would people think.

Last November I wrote about sponsoring children in China to go to school (http://journey-with-magnolia.blogspot.com/2006/11/diary-of-ma-yan-life-of-chinese.html and http://journey-with-magnolia.blogspot.com/2006/11/it-is-when-you-hear-from-girls.html).

For Christmas my husband and I gave each other sponsorships for 3 years for a further girl and two boys from our daughters hometown. We had originally intended just to sponsor girls because we feel strongly that through education the girls may be able to break out of the poverty cycle and also demonstrate to others the value of having daughters, particularly educated ones. But when we realised that there were boys needing education in our daugther's hometown, we realised that it was probably just as important to show our daughter that not just girls who were encountering difficulties (a sort of equal opportunity).

I'm also happy to report that at the same time two other Australian families who have adopted from Fuling also sponsored a further 6 children between them. The organisation in Fuling that coordinates the sponsorships continues to be so pleased that foreigners take such an interest in the children.

My husband and I are now sponsoring 6 girls and 2 boys - and it will be something to remember long after the tinsel is a distant memory - and for those kids it will last a lifetime.

So if you are stuck for a gift suggestion or idea for a birthday, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day or Christmas etc - forget the extra pairs of socks or the box of chocolates - maybe you would like to consider sponsoring a child in China, or elsewhere, or maybe helping meet medical costs for a child with special needs.

but on a positive note (for the superstitious)

A ladybird landed on me this morning, while I was at dog training...

'Say it isn't so'

Recently I have seen quite a few people, usually recently DTC, posting to various groups that they have either just ‘crunched some numbers’ on their likely referral date or have seen or run someone else’s predictor and come up with dates of 2009 or 2010 or whatever– the post usually ends with a ‘please tell me it isn’t so!!!’.

As much as we’d all like to comfort these people (and ourselves), the thing is that none of us know – but wish I did.

While I am a rabid number cruncher myself, I always remind myself of the little disclaimer at the bottom of a financial prospectus 'past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance'. So while I do fill in time during the wait crunching numbers and coming up with new averages to apply, what the CCAA has done in the past is not necessarily indicative of their performance in the future.

What we do know is that for more than 12 months now the CCAA has not allocated full months of LIDs and some times very few LIDs per referral month. We have the official statement from the CCAA, in their change to eligibility criteria notification, to the effect that the number of applicants has been in excess of available children.

Until we see full months of LIDs being referred per referral month (cycle), the wait will not stabilise and it will continue to increase. For the wait to decline, more than one month of LIDs per referral months needs to be referred, each referral cycle.

What does the future hold in the short and medium term – well there is no way of predicting because we are not privy to all the factors that may 'drive' the number of referrals in the future. We don’t know:

• the number of files already logged in;
• how many people may be dissuaded by the possible length of wait and may withdraw their files and explore alternatives;
• how many children the CCAA might make available for Intercountry adoptions (and what impact such initiatives as the Blue Sky project – aimed at assisting medically frail abandoned children - may have); and
• any other number of factors.

There are indications that the number of files logged in during 2006 was down from the 'heady' months of 2005 but there is no way of knowing if this truly correct, until perhaps those months are referred (even then we don’t know what other factors might be at play).

There is likely to be a significant spike in files logged in prior to May 2007, as files are sent prior to the rule change – this was seen in the months prior to the introduction of the singles quota and US quota at the end of 2001.

Because unfortunately the new criteria may rule out a significant number of applicants and this may bring the number of applicants more in line with the number of children available for Intercountry adoption. As the number of applicants and available children approaches equilibrium, the wait should start to stabilise. So once the CCAA has processed the pre 1 May applications there should hopefully be an impact on wait time. However, there are by all accounts a lot of files to be processed before they can get to this point – like the implementation of the quotas in 2001, it will be many, many, MANY months before we see the 1 May 2007 rules having an impact on wait times.

In know that it is really difficult during the wait not to obsess on when the referral is going to happen (or in your darkest hours, if it is going to happen at all) – I know I did this first time round (and do still occasionally do). But no amount of stress from any of us is going to make it happen any sooner – if anything the only thing that it is going to do is negatively affect our health. Trust me, when you get that referral you need to be healthy.

As much as I want a referral sooner rather than later I am preparing myself for a long wait (even a long, long wait) – if it happens sooner ‘bonus’. It does mean that to some extent our lives are in a ‘holding pattern’ because of the uncertainty.

Trying to look at the glass half full, rather than a glass half empty – at least we are in the ‘queue’ (sorry for using a commercial term but you know what I mean) – which unfortunately many will not be able to join after 1 May 2007 - and each day that passes is one day closer.

Sorry for the short break in transmissions...

Things have been so hectic between my last post and now that I haven't had time to get to the blog.

New Year's Eve was eventful with a huge storm hitting our area - lightening, heavy rain and hail - which caused water up to my ankles to course through our backyard and through our garage. The street was a brown churning 'river'. Fortunately our roof and guttering held, so no leaks inside but the hail trashed the garden (that night my husband was in the vegetable garden with a torch assessing his losses - most of it).

Our 4.5 yo thought it was great after it was over because it looked like snow and was throwing snowballs - the hail was so deep that it lasted nearly 24 hours (and it is summertime here).

So New Year's day as spent cleaning up the garage and getting rid of the mud. And a large part of the time since has been spent putting the mess into a skip.

Then back to work this last week...

Will try to post more frequently in future...