and ladybugs were the theme for March. My secret buddy (or not so secret…thanks, Wendi!) was on the ball (despite parenting a newborn!), and I got my package today. Look at all these fun ladybug themed things! So cute. For those of you thinking, “what’s up with the ladybugs?” Ladybugs have become a symbol of Chinese adoption. Apparently, not too long ago, as the international adoption program in China was becoming quite large, there was a fall season where the ladybug population took off. This was thought to be a type of “lucky charm” for those who were adopting little ones from China. Often times, waiting families take hope in seeing a ladybug as a reminder that their time will come for their little one to come home too.

Today marks 18 months from the time our paperwork for adopting our next child was logged into the system at the China Center for Adoption Affairs. In that time, 18 months, the CCAA has only issued children to about 3 1/2 months worth of families. Ugh. So, when we started, we were anticipating a 2 year wait. Now, we have no idea how long our wait will be. 2 more years? 3 more years? More? It’s hard to say. Many people are changing countries, adopting from the waiting children list (typically older or special needs children), or are dropping out completely. We are committed to waiting this out, but we do wish we knew what that meant. There are rumors that the “climate” at the offices of the CCAA is looking good and that they are implying that things are going to pick up soon. I really hope that that is true. 

Several people have asked me lately about where things stand for us in the adoption process. I will try to give the simple facts here. The Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA), the governmental office in China that handles all of their adoptions, has had our paperwork logged into their system for 17 months as of next week. Everyday, basically, they log in more families who have sent them a big packet of information called a dossier. At one point a while ago (and in a perfect working office), they would process 30 days of dossiers each month. This means that when they would issue referrals (baby pictures and medical information assigned to a waiting family) once a month, they would issue enough to cover a month’s worth of waiting families. However, that has not been the case for a long time. In the entire 17 months of our waiting, the CCAA has only processed about 3 months of paperwork. Yes, that means that in 17 months, only 3 months worth of families have actually received referrals for their children. Obviously, this slowdown has caused a huge backlog of waiting families. No one knows when the CCAA will start speeding up and what this means for waiting families. Many waiting parents are dropping out of the program entirely or pursuing a concurrent adoption while they wait. We are committed to sticking with the program and still very much feel called to our little girl. But, we have no idea when she will actually come home. All we know right now is that the process will be a long one. Very likely, we will have one or two more Christmases without her–and that’s a good case scenario. Besides the long indefinite wait being a hard one for us, it is hard for our children who were prepared to bring their new sister home the day we started our paperwork process back in March of 2007. Pray that we would be patient with the process, knowing that God will make us wait the perfect amount of time for OUR little girl to join our family. And, please pray for the CCAA to pick up their pace not only for our process but for the children who are in orphanages there who are not being placed in their forever families because of politics or logistics or whatever. It breaks my heart to imagine babies over there laying in cribs alone when there are so so many mommies and daddies wanting so badly to bring them home. 

What an amazing song as we wait for our baby girl. Join us in praying for her birth family as they prepare to make potentially the hardest decision of their lives…to give up their little girl.