The Good, the Bad and the Cute

The good news…

The glow-in-the-dark stars came! I was going to paint them on, but I have zero artistic ability so I opted for the sticky kind instead. Here is part of the ceiling with both the sticky-on-the-ceiling stars and a few hanging ones. I have circled a few of the hard to see sticky-on-the-ceiling ones for your edification (because I’m sure this is a life-altering event for you).

Don’t mind the bare light bulb, J needs to hang the ceiling fan.

Think we’ll create an irrational fear of clouds and stars in her?

Also in the realm of good news…

The Hannah Andersen order came. Here is one of the outfits I bought. Yay! Pink sheep! Every little girl needs a onesie with a pink sheep on it!

In the realm of bad news….

It appears that the referrals did not ship from China on Friday. Apparently they are working over the weekend (which is pretty damn nice of them), but are taking the first part of next week off. The bottom line is, who knows when we’ll know about the next batch? We are rapidly approaching a new record for number of days between batches. Whoo! (That was sarcasm)

My expectations at this point are pretty low and I think I need to keep them there. I think it will be a small batch that we had to wait extra long to receive. That’s my prediction. I know I’m a pessimist and that’s supposed to be all bad and I’m supposed to put on my positive happy face, but that’s not what I’m feeling. I have yet to be happily surprised by a batch in the last 15 months.

When I’m happy — When I’m sad — Use the corresponding face for the corresponding emotions.

Anyone who can name that movie quote gets a virtual cookie.

Today is our 15th month anniversary of being LID, btw. We are also close to breaking a record because my agency said the longest anyone has ever waited for a referral was 16 months. (during SARs). Of course, I shouldn’t whine because (unhappily) those who are LID after us will wait much, much longer than 16 months.

Also in the realm of bad news. Damn it! We’re out of red wine.

Now the cute…

He just climbed up on the ladder in the nursery and knocked down a star. But can I be mad at him? You tell me.

 

Next Wednesday

My agency hopes the CCAA will mail referrals by the end of this week. Right now it is 3:59 AM on Friday, December 29 in Beijing China. The CCAA opens at 9am. (That also means somewhere in China our future daughter is probably sleeping right now. I always know what time it is there, you know, because I’m always wondering what she’s doing.)

If they mail by the end of this week, the calls won’t start going out from our agency until next Wednesday. We may have an idea about the cut-off date a little before then, though (maybe).

Ugh. This is going to be a lot of waiting and emotional poo-poo just to find out we’re not in the batch. But if we’re not, it’s just four (or so) weeks until we see her face. Four weeks. That’s….

28 days

672 hours

40,320 minutes

2,419,200 seconds

I can do that. I can. Really.

 

Well…

…It looks as if this batch will not arrive before Christmas. This does not surprise me. My agency thinks end of December/early January and I tend to agree. Personally, I think they’ll come next week, before Jan, just because it seems they like to have a batch arrive once a month officially.

I still can’t shake the feeling — against all rationality and objectivity — that we have been matched. I wish I could shake it because it would make for less of a let down if we’re not in this batch. My intuition says we have, but I’m just not trusting my intuition at this point. I’m way too close to this issue to trust it.

So, in anticipation of us not being in this batch, here are some things I will do in the next month while we wait (some more):

1. Finish getting FD’s room decorated.
2. Save more money. We’re still a bit short for this last part of the adoption and we would prefer not to go into debt for it.
3. Work like a fiend in anticipation of not being able to work for several months after FD is home.
4. Lose some of the weight I have put on from nervous/emotional eating. I think I’ve gained about 5 pounds, but I don’t want to get on the scale to find out.
5. As a salve for my bummed-outness, I will create another blog and hire someone to do graphics for it to make it all purty. I will keep this LJ as well.

CCAA has implemented (will implement) many new rules for adoptive parents — new requirements on weight, health and financial situation. It’s in an effort to pare down the amount of families who wish to adopt from China.

This has been in the news, so you may have seen it. I’ve known about it for a while. I think James and I would be okay under the new regulations. The unknown variable is my asthma. So, I think we could adopt again, if we chose. (We’re just trying to get through this one, so not really thinking about that now.)

The big question currently is whether or not the CCAA will immediately begin rejecting logged in dossiers under these new regs, or if they will apply them to all new adopting families. Most assume the latter. I really, really hope so. I can’t imagine waiting for as long as we have, having gone through all that we have…only to be rejected a month away from referral. My god. I can’t even begin to imagine that.

Okay…now fun stuff. Dude, I need some fun stuff:

I am going to buy this today….

Ergo baby carrier. I’ve been considering a few different ones, but I think this one will be the most comfortable and easy to use. You can use it with older kids, too…which is a good thing.

I am also buying this….

Diaper bag!

 

Gah

I can’t concentrate at all today. Mentally, I feel like I’m slogging through molasses. Worse is that there’s absolutely not a flicker of news or rumor out there anywhere.

In previous months I think I’ve maintained some rationality and objectivity when it came to rumors. This month I have none of either. I’m just hanging on and going for the ride, feeling oddly calm about the whole thing. I’m trying to deny this gut feeling I have that this is the month. Were I rational at this time, I would say the chances of that are slim. However I am not rational and I have this sense that we’ve been matched. James feels the same way.

If I’m wrong I’ll be disappointed, but I don’t think there’s any real way to save myself from that anyway.

In among the hope, anticipation and happiness is much fear. Fear about how we’ll feel when we first see her picture. Fear about going to China and how she’ll react to us. Fear how her health will be. Fear of change. Fear of the future. I really think this is normal, though. I mean, gee, it would be kind of strange not to have fears, I think.

I realized this morning that we’re in our 21st month since we started this process. An elephant’s gestation is 22 months. We’re close!

 

The Craziness is Here

This month is going to make me crazy.

There is an agency in Europe that is very reliable and in contact with someone directly at CCAA, who says they’re almost finished matching the next batch and that it will include all of September. It also looks like there is another reliable agency saying the same thing.

There are three agencies saying the cut off will be September 23rd, however it appears (and at least one has stated) that they’re going strictly by number of days the CCAA has been averaging and not by number of dossiers. As we know…September was a screwed up month for logging dossier in. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the cut off would be the 23rd because that would mean a VERY small batch size. Between Sept 9 and Sept 29, there aren’t many dossiers logged in at all.

So, here’s the thing, this is the normal “chatter” for this time of month. Early on comes this great rumor that gets everyone’s hopes up… then comes the truth, which is always a let down.

However, because of the strange log pattern for September 2005, it actually makes some sense that they’d go ahead and do the whole month. Anything less than that and it will be quite a below average batch size. Could there be a significantly below average batch size? Of course!

So, we’ll see. There’s another factor in play here too. To correct some of the log in strangeness of September 2005, the CCAA has been reassigning people to different LID dates. So, who knows? This could be a very strange month.

Someone who has BTDT says the CCAA usually tries to get the batch in before Christmas. It would be nice of them, but I’m not sure I buy it. Why would they care about our holidays, you know? Anyway, I’m in wait-and-see mode, trying not to get my hopes up too much.

James is convinced we’ll see her face this month. Me…I dunno.

 

The Way It Shakes Out

Round and round she goes. Where she stops, nobody knows.

The way this will shake out is a mystery. China could do something drastically different. This fact is characterized by the unpredictability of this last batch of referrals and the nature of September in general:

• September ‘05 suffered from several log in mishaps, resulting in no log in dates for most the month and then the Monster Day of 9/29.
• This last batch was a strange one in that the cut off date was 9/8, yet some families beyond that date were given referrals (while others with a LID date of 9/9 were skipped).
• Several families were given referrals for children 2 years of age or older. In one case the child is nearly three. Up until now China has not referred children over the age of 24 months in the non-special needs program. Normally older children are considered special needs because their adjustment to their new family is a bit rougher.

So, even more than ever, there are questions and no answers. But here’s what I do know….

The next batch, if they do it with the standard number of days betwn batches, should arrive somewhere around December 28th. If we go by RQ’s polls, which are (most likely) representative of about a quarter of adoptive families and have a 4% margin of error….they put 9/29 on the cusp.

Controlling for these factors, the bottom line is:

• If the CCAA matches short of 9/29, it will be a much smaller batch than average.
• If the CCAA matches through 9/29, it will be a slightly larger batch than average, but not overly so.

To me, it looks like we might very well be getting a referral this month. That said…who knows? This will be the first batch of CCAA’s new fiscal/policy year. Plus, the CCAA is having a new policy-setting meeting on December 8th. There is no telling (and we’re certain not to know) what comes of that.

They could decide to split the monster day of 9/29. They could choose to skip it altogether. So, everything is very much up in the air.

I know one thing for certain: I have officially and irrefutably entered Adoption Anxiety Land. On the bright side, it’s nice to be sure about something.

 

The scoop

…per our adoption agency. Dude, they actually provided some information. Amazing.

IF we get the referral in the next batch (likely around Christmas), they’re going to try and squeeze our travel in BEFORE Chinese New Year, which means we’d travel around the first of February.

Hard to believe that even if we don’t get the referral in the next batch, we’ll be seeing our daughter’s face in less than 8 weeks.