From chinaadoptionforecast.com

A quote, complete, from the http://www.chinaadoptionforecast/ site:
"The people receiving referrals now have waited about 21 months. If you are just putting in your dossier right now, we expect you will wait at least three years from the time your dossier is logged-in for a referral. This will make your total time to adopt from China, from initial decision to adopt until receiving a child, more than four years. It could well be five years or more. It is our strong recommendation that you avoid adopting from China if at all possible, as we believe that if you are pursuing adoption, it is probably because you are interested in having a child in less than five years. Domestic adoption and international adoption from other countries are likely to be much faster ways to have a family than adopting from China."

These people have been watching China's adoptions much longer than I have. But, I have to agree with what they say. Further on down, they say that they believe that if you type in a date rather far off from the current cutoff, and you get an extrapolation of more than 3 years, they don't believe it, because of one thing: Attrition. Yes, many many people in the adoption world believe that so many people will give up, take their ball, and go home, that it will at some point assist with the wait time coming back down. Sad, huh? That this process, the one that should be so exciting and rewarding, can turn into such a sad and frustrating experience, that people will not only give up a life dream, but also thousands of dollars because of how the game changed.

Last summer, I tried to talk P into going to Vietnam. He said no way, we'd be here a year later. H would be with us by now. Hrrrmph.

Let's see what chinaadoptionforecast says (And I think they are a wee bit optimistic for even someone who's just 20ish days away):

Quote:
Our best guess - a weighted average of recent CCAA velocities, guessing that CCAA will perform about as well in the future as they are performing now, but might return to previous trends: 2007-09-30
That's our best guess for when you might receive your referral. Just at a guess, we can suppose that the CCAA either speeds up or slows down significantly, and show you those dates. If they speed up: 2007-09-09. And if they slow down: 2008-01-02.

And, that's not including travel folks. Yes, we have for sure ruled out yet another calendar year.

I find it so sad:
1. That this is not a joyful process anymore. It should be. This should be my (and everyone else's) glowing pregnancy days.
2. That the most respected IA program in the world is not anymore. On the whole, I think China does right by the kids it puts up for IA - they do their best to keep high ethics.
3. The reason for all this is politics of some sort. Why, we don't know, cause 3b. They won't tell anyone anything. If I was waiting for H to be abandoned, for a child to not have a home, I could not complain. That is not the case. The case is that China wants to save face. I respect the notion of face, that it is their culture, but as a Westerner, I cannot fathom living life by living that way. The idea that I can lie to someone not of the same standing because I don't think they have the right to ask for the truth? (That's just a small part of it, it's more complex than that, but this is a facet of it) That I do not get. And that children will grow up without mothers and fathers because the view that it isn't good to "let" that many kids into the IA program, well, you don't want to hear my words for that.
4. China took so long to put rules into place. The first 1/2 month came in November or October of 2005. That's 22 months ago. They knew about what they thought of as "too many applicants" at least 6 months before that. They put rules into effect May 1 2007. That's 24 or 25 months before they changed the rules to slow applications down. That's too many people that did not go into this with eyes open. Yes, there were the ones in 07 rushing to beat the new rules - they signed up for this. So many of us didn't.

OK, getting down off my apple crate and catching my breath...