We are part of a great yahoo group for families adopting from China in the same timing as us (all with Log-In Dates in July 2007). We have had a gift exchange going that we do every other month, and I got my gift today! The theme was Happy Children’s Day which is pretty general but gave everybody a chance to give a gift specifically for the children. Today, I got the cutest little ladybug outfit, a matching hairbow (I love hairbows!), and the cutest little ladybug spoon and fork set. It was good to get a fun package today!

The may batch of referrals are arriving. Though I am thrilled for the families who were able to see their baby’s face for the first time (or babies’–I saw a picture from a family who received gorgeous girl twins!), it is hard to be encouraged at this point. Looks like this month the CCAA only processed 3 days worth of LIDs. That means that in the last 12 months, the CCAA only processed 78 days worth of LIDs total, under 3 months worth of LIDs. With a LID of 7/23/2007 and current referrals up to 1/12/2006, obviously we are far far off. In fact, they MUST speed up or else it would take about 6 more years before we get our child. I’m holding onto hope that after the Olympics in Beijing, there will be a speed up. We’re hoping that they get back to processing 30-35 LID batches per month come this fall.