Rumor Rundown
I almost don't have the heart to do this.. but here goes.
- GWCA has apparently notified their October LID's that they are now in the review room, and that GWCA's best guess is that they'll get their referral in September or October. This would seem to conflict with the CCAA getting out less than a week of referrals a month. Wouldn't it?
- GWCA is also apparently expecting some of June, just not sure how much of June.
- Someone on one of the Spain boards is claiming that their agency told them that the cut-off for Spain is May 30th but for the U.S. is June 10th. This would seem to go against past precedents, but it sounds good for the U.S. families who would be included. Sucks for the Spanish families though.
- I'm seeing several agencies who are saying the slow down as more to do with the Hunan situation than is being admitted to, and that things should start speeding up a bit now that the trial is over.
- Bethany confirmed cut off of 5/31.
- Another agency says referrals will be mailed at the first of next week.
- There is also a rumor that the 5/31 LID's number over 400. What are the odds that an agency who can only refer three business days of LID's in a whole month could log in 400 dossiers in a single day? Not too good, I would think.
posted by RumorQueen at 3/22/2006 08:02:00 PM
62 Comments:
actually, Bethany put the cut off at May 31st...not that that's much better. (I am the one who emailed you earlier)
You're right - the actual quote said 5/31, so I changed the post to say that. I also got several emails saying they'd said 5/30 though.
Dear RQ,
Can you clear some things up for me. I am reading what info I have outside of your splendid blog....
CCAA says finished reviewing thru 7/31 and finished placement thru 5/25.
GWCA says Matching room May 31 and all of June, Review room all July thru all October, Translation all November thru all February.
Small Fla agency, to remain nameless, per request said any day referrals thru July.
Small Fla and CCAA coincide...right?
GWCA behind only on July being the review room vs. matching room.
CCAA you say is slow, but they have the better info!? Or am I missing something?
Haha 8:43 - I wish I knew the answers.
It is my belief that the review room is way ahead of what the CCAA has posted. There are some theories around this, one says that they don't post the room is out of review until all questions about a month have been resolved. Another says they don't want us to know where they really are for a variety of "conspiracy theory" type reasons. No matter the reason, we know that oftentimes people are asked questions several months ahead of what the CCAA site says they are working on, so we know they are ahead of what the site says. Yes, the CCAA site is "official", and the final word.. but doesn't mean they aren't ahead of what is posted.
As for the vast differences in referral rumors - who knows.
8:43 here
Thank you RQ...
Dear RQ,
I am new to all of these rumours as this is our first adoption, from what i have seen the last few months each month starts out similar with "varied" rumours and then towards the end of each month there appears to be one that circulates more frequent than the rest of the rumours as in this case a May 30th or 31st cut-off date. What i am wondering has this scenario nearly always been the norm? and if so does the actual "outcome" - what actually IS referred always inline with the last rumour? ie: is there a possiblity that this current rumour May 30th/31st be wrong and in actual fact they will cover some of June LIDS as well? Has this happened before?
Ok, now I'm confused about 8:43 anon post about Small FL agency who shall remain nameless is saying something to the effect that referrals will be coming through JULY??? Since we are LID 7/26, I would REALLY like to hear this one more fully.
My agency has said cutoff is 5/31 and referrals are expected by the first week in April. What happened to your venting post. I was fond of it?
I haven't removed any posts or comments Lisa, everything should still be there.
I've only seen one person state the info from the small Florida agency - I need at least two different people telling me about something like that, especially when it goes against pretty much every other rumor being put out at the time.
RQ--I'm intrigued by the reference to Hunan being a contributor to the slow down. You mentioned several agencies saying this. How many is several? Did people actually tell you their particular agency was saying this, or was it more ambiguous? I'd be encouraged if this were the case, actually....and it would renew some hope for me that things could pick up. I like it better than the "May was a big month" business, since things slowed down long before they got to May. Hunan just seems more logical.
7:44 - someone from a month or two ago posted that their in-China guide told them that the whole Hunan thing was a big part of the slowdown. This guide apparently spends time in the CCAA offices between trips, and she said that they were doing a lot of work to keep this from happening again, and that the baby's files were also going through extra scrutiny.
I've had a half dozen or so people in the past two weeks say their agency has told them something similar. No idea if those half dozen people come from the same agency or multiple agencies.
Personally, I think the Hunan thing has contributed to the slow down, but is not the reason for it.
the small forida agency/referrals through July rumor is just too impossible to be believed. i laughed when i saw it! We should probably ignore it ( as nice as it would be)
We are very new to the adoption process and so I'm wondering what is the Hunan situation?
Our log in date is 1/7 and last week our agency said the wait is currently 39 weeks from LID to referral. (Small agency in PA) This seemed like a slight improvement over their last announcement that referrals were taking 10-12 months.
Does anyone think there is any possiblity that the wait could get shorter or stay the same thru the summer?
GW confirms May 30 cut off
From GW- "This morning our Beijing office confirmed that the CCAA will
complete the matching process for families with dossiers registered
through May 30, 2005. This will affect adoption agencies across the
board. As you know, GWCA has already received referrals for our
families registered before this date. Based on this information, we
are not expecting referrals this month for families whose dossiers
were registered after May 30, 2005. "
This is sortof odd --arent ccai and gwca two of the biggest agencies? and didnt ccai say the same thing about how they have no families in the may26-30 group? I know there are lots more agencies out there, but how can the numbers in the may26-30 group be so HUGE that it warrants a whole month of referrals if there is no one from ccai and gwca?
Bethany is not getting any referrals either.
weird...very, very wierd
My agency (one of the big ones) says they believe the next group will include the rest of May but they cannot confirm whether or not it will include any of June. Theyre are no more May LID's with my big agency.
Spain, Canada and many other countries are having huge numbers of dossiers submitted as well. It seems CCAA held back dossiers and logged many in on May 31st with large agencies. Was this planned a long time back? They have a process, we just can`t figure it out.
All I know is I am drained. 3 LIDs of Matches done and yet they keep accepting dossiers by the records! If there are not enough children, quit taking in the dossiers and stringing people along.
CCAI posted the following on 3/22/2006:
"We have learned that the CCAA is working on the next set of matches. We believe this group will include the rest of May LID families. CCAI does not have any additional dates for the month of May. At this time we cannot confirm if it will include any June LID.
That is all the information we have at this time. We will update this site when more information becomes available."
not directly related to the rumor rundown but in today's ny times there's a fascinating article on the front page about children adopted from china. here's a link to the site (article is on the homepage):
www.nytimes.com
First off I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you for this blog!
I love all the candid discussion! I too am frustrated by the long wait times like everyone else but I'm wondering about the use of the term "slow down." Do we have reason to believe that the CCAA is processing fewer dossiers per month? I'm guessing in their world they are not slowing down at all but maintaining the amount of dossiers they match each time. For some reason I can't see them caring about the LID dates covered so much as the number of matches per month. Going with that theory, I too think it's strange that 3 of the biggest agencies don't have any LIDs covered by this batch yet it's still so big.
I would love to be corrected if I'm wrong but I just can't see the Hunan situation having anything to do with this if the CCAA is still matching X number of dossiers per batch.
I'm with everyone else in that it would be so nice if they would make the numbers available--How many dossiers logged in per given month and how many matches made each batch.
So I guess back to my original question, do we have any info that says that for this 5 day batch of LIDs they actually matched fewer babies than they did with the last 12 day batch or previous 30 day batches?
I wish I had the guts to email the CCAA directly to ask them. They have a "contact us" button on their website. Let me tell you, I was tempted yesterday!
My heart goes out to all the May 31st referral groups
My heart goes out to all the people in June and July and beyond, because the wait is only going to get exponentially worse. As bad as it is for May 31, at least they know they are going to be next. I'm at the end of June, and at this point I'm thinking I'll be lucky if I get a referral in late July. That would be a 13 month wait.
It really strikes me as odd that there are so many agencies that are reporting they have no LIDs for the end of May.
It's possible that the next batch of referrals in April will only include May 31, if this trend continues.
This comment doesn't give any new information about cut-off dates, but I thought I'd share a quote from an email I received from my agency (large, Canadian agency) last week re: timeframes and matching, in case it's news to anyone else...
"Each month CCAA directors determine the number of children to be placed that month, say 1000. Staff then determines in what time frame 1000 family files were registered. If 1000 files were registered between May 31 and June 10th, for example, that is the matching period for the next referrals. If it takes from May 31st to June 20th to get to the 1000 then that is the time frame. It is the number of files to be matched, and their registration date, that is key.
In some matching periods (we have) no files registered. That is what happened in February and again in April. Our registration dates fell outside the matching ones. In the May match for instance the cut-off date was May 14th and our files were registered May 16th. In that case we receive no referrals.
In previous years CCAA received about 700-1000 files per month from overseas. It was able to match that many every month, or in fact for a while it matched two months at a time. However the number of family files kept increasing. The last part of last year the number of files in fact doubled. The number of waiting children files did not. This meant a short fall in ability to match quickly and a need to extend the time lines."
1:07--That makes perfect sense. And I've heard it speculated that this is how they do it. But if that is true (and I'm not saying it's not...I believe it), then why wouldn't every agency know for sure that this is how the CCAA operates? Seems simple to me, and no big deal to divulge this information to agencies. This is the part of the process that frustrates me the most....that some of these things don't seem to need to be unknowable.
12:33-I hear ya! I too feel terrible for the May 31st and June people. You are so close but then then rug gets taken out from under you.
I've been saying all along how the wait will get exponentially longer and people just don't seem to get it. I'm DTC in Feb, don't even have a LID yet and I posted on a forum awhile back that based on the Feb batch of referrals I might not see a referral for 22 months!
I got all these responses like "but my agency says the wait is 10-11 months, where are you hearing 22?" "But my agency said yada yada."
Does it matter what your agency says? We can all do math. I got responses about how I can't make an estimation based a couple batches of referrals, things can change etc etc. Well what if they don't?
If people just starting out aren't preparing themselves for a 20+ month wait then they are going to be even more disappointed in the end.
I'm just so glad someone else used the phrase "exponentially worse."
I realize I'm walking a fine line between realism and pessimism but it's all I've got to go on.
1:15--that's kind of what I've been thinking. Why can't agencies just say that's how it works? Why can't the CCAA notify the agencies of the current numbers? It seems so secretive at times.
It seems so strange that they only did 3 business days but maybe not so strange considering that the last couple of batches were really huge by all accounts...maybe CCAA "used up" (for lack of a better term) all its paper-ready children over the course of the last couple of batches, and not enough new children's dossiers came in to match more than 3 business days of LIDs. I don't think May 26, 27, and 30 were that huge but from looking at lots of boards it appears that May 31 was, so maybe CCAA had to choose between splitting May 31, issuing referrals later once more children's paperwork arrived, or just issuing May 26-30 and they chose the latter. Just my theory.
I am glad CCAA seems to prioritize getting referrals out approximately once per month rather than focusing on doing complete calendar months.
Anon 1:17 I agree with you about "exponential" being a good word for the wait increase that is happening. I keep seeing on adoptionforums and other boards where people are saying, "But my agency is saying the wait is only 11 months!" Are agencies not telling people that right now the wait is on pace to be 2-3 years, or more, for new LIDs?
However I just can't believe that CCAA has not imposed a quota yet, unless they really do foresee that the wait time will not keep increasing like this. That gives me hope that maybe they do expect things to speed back up. It seems to me that if they continue accepting so many dossiers and there really are few children available, they will be promoting the types of situations that we saw with Hunan.
I wish I had the guts to email the CCAA directly to ask them. They have a "contact us" button on their website. Let me tell you, I was tempted yesterday!
12:03 PM
i am like you here 12:03 PM, i have typed an e mail several times to the CCAA but chickened out at the last minute to send. It was just going to be polite asking how many dossiers they get "on average" per month.
I came up with the 22 months scenrio in my head 2 months ago when Referrals were bad. My LID is March 1 2006.
The problem I have with the 22 month wait, well besides the wait is having to re-do 3500 dollars worth of paperwork. All of our entire dossiers will need to be completely re-done as they expire at 18 months.
If it is really going to be this long it would be respectful (but entirely unrealistic) is someone would say....well we don't know what is happening but your wait time could be as long as 22 months.....
1:40 - Besides our fingerprints and 171H, what else would have to be redone? Where are you coming up with a figure of $3500???
Blood work/medical forms only last a year or so, i was told. homestudies last only 18 months, and remember we did them months before were were LID in order to get our fingerprint appointments. so i am already 6 months into my homestudy expiring period...
i really do wonder, does anyone care about this? i dont expect the ccaa to care, but shouldnt our agencies, who seem to be afraid to ask the ccaa anything, use the expiration of documents as an excuse to say 'hey, maybe you could give us a little heads up on whether the wait is going to be 24 months or 12 months.'
i dont know, but i get so hepped up in the wait times and crappy referrals and getting annoyed about it all that i FORGET about this whole issue of document expiration and then i get even more upset.
GWCA has just confirmed that the cut off is May 30th for agencies across the board. Bummer
I am sorry, I am new here, but was does GWCA refer to?
2:16 GWCA is Great Wall China Adoptions.
Great Wall of China agency.
As for expirations. It is a real kick in the butt. A new homestudy must be done from the get go. all the physicals reference letters hours of SW talks and home visits. Criminal checks, bloodwork. not to mention if something new is found with your physical, can it mess things up?
With a log in date of June 29th I am feeling the same frustration, anxiety, and feeling of powerless that we all have in common. We are all waiting and wanting to begin this wonderful change in our lives no matter how many are currently in our family. My children and I have prayed nightly for their little sister. She is already ours in our hearts. I am praying that the Lord will have compassion and show mercy on all of us. If it is not his plan I will accept it but I do believe he has the power to intervene on our behalf if we have the confidence to ask him. With all of the people who seem to be reading this sight that would be a constructive way to spend our wait. I hope you will try.
I am 2:16.
Thank you for the clarification.
I was just wondering one thing. Everywhere we are getting the word that end of May is the cut off. Some boards say end of May, others here say May 30th or 31st. I must say I am confused and more than that I am very anxious since we are LID May 31st.
Should I be worried? and how true are those confirmations you are talking about?
Thanks
Gen
I get the 3500 dollar figure to re-do the dossier.
Homestudy
I-600/171
All the Homestudy papers will need to be new and re-authenticated
Background checks
Physicals
Everything...my tally for all this stuff was around 3k but they have increased the prices this year and will do so again next year.
That to me is just disasterous. It took me 6 months to get it done and now wait time at the CIS in my state has increased from 3 to 4 months.
I do feel agencies should step up to the plate and find out what is going on. When they tell you that it will cost x and then that increases by alot it should be made a priority.
Disastrous is right, 2:27. It took us 3 months from homestudy submission to 171-H. The thought of doing that again makes me want to scream/go to guatemala
2:35.
I hear ya. If I knew that this wait thing was going to really tumble down the bad path I would have waited and chose another program. But now it is too late. We can't get our money back and I feel completely trapped.
Also, I already have my girl in my heart.
Who is going to do china now? I wonder what agencies are telling new clients!
I simply have to believe that they will speed up again. Going back several years the wait never got over 13 to 14 months, I think, even during SARS. The CCAA is not a model of humanitarianism, but they have a vested interest in getting those orphans off their hands.
Trying to stay positive, if somewhat bitter
I'm not sure you need to completely redo the homestudy. I think you'll just need to file an update, which is basically just a letter from your SW stating what, if anything has changed. The clock stops on the other documents when it's logged into CCAA.
(Except for CIS, you need to redo your I171H or whatever they call it now after 18 months). But you shouldn't need new physicals, employment letters, or financial statements.
You know, I am noticing that our agency (not mentioned here yet) doesn't have any LIDs for the rest of May either...They had two big LIDs of 5/13 & 5/20, but none for the rest of the month (which is odd because they send dossiers every Friday). But, they do have 5 LIDs in June.
I want to comment on the redos. We just had our homestudy udated. In my state if you have it updated, before it expires, you do not have to go through all of the same stuff. We had to pay a very small fee, get a criminal background check on my son, which is a new law for 2006 in my state. We will have to have tb test redone. This is just copays. Noting else has to be done. Our SW just came and met with us to discuss everything. She is updating our ages and the kids ages and schools. If nothing major has changed in your life, then it should not be a big deal. It may be different in other states. Yes, I am not happy about paying againg for this, but it was better than doing it over. We do have to be refingerprinted again. We have to pay a fee, not as much. We will have to travel 3 hours to have them done. We are planning on doing this over spring break and making it a family day. We may even go to an amusement park. Yes, more money spent. I just wanted you to be aware that you may not have to go through doing everything over if you do not let your homestudy run out. It may be different in your state. I hope this helps. Just went through the update on Tuesday.
I think 2:53 is right. I asked my agency about having to redo our homestudy if we didn't get the baby before the HS was a year old (in Nov.) My agency told me that the homestudy has to be less than a year old at the time of REFERRAL and that if not, we have to have a homestudy UPDATE. We've already done one of those 'cause we moved mid-paperchase... but post I-171... and it was pretty painless... it cost us $250.00. The social worker just came to our house... saw everything was cool and wrote the update. It's quite small compared to the original. We'll need another HS update anyway, 'cause we've put a contract on a new house and plan on moving AGAIN before traveling. We're really nomads disguised as your typical American family.
Whoa. My homestudy was COMPLETE in March 2005. It's March 2006 and I'm not close to a referral. My agency and social worker haven't said a word about me having to do a homestudy update.
Is this an across-the-board rule?
Our agency, CHI, is way too hush hush with information. As a client I feel completely in the dark about what's happening. I'm impressed that the other agencies post information on their websites to keep families informed of referral dates. CHI tends to only give that sort of info to the families who are next to receive referrals. Other families with CHI learn about referrals from rumor sites or when referrals come in. I don't feel it's fair because as a waiting family, I deserve to know what's going on, too. It affects me, so why can't I know? How come I have to hear about referral information from everyone else's agency and not my own? CHI sends out that information about a month after it's happened.
Great, so this wait is not only emotionally draining, it's also financially draining. I don't want to invest another 200-500 dollars plus just because of a long wait time with the CCAA. Yeah, it's not a LOT of money in the big picture, but it's annoying that we have to go through this.
An update can be done 1 time in our area. After that if it expires EVERYTHING must be done. So if you have adopted before and updated and it expires then it has to be done completely over = $3000+
Every state is different as well as every agency. In my case, I would have to pay for a new Homestudy, they do not have an update fee, just the 1500 again, mine lasts 18 months. Also at 18 months the 171 runs out and you need to re-do the whole thing. Fingerprints run out at 12 months but the 171 expires at 18. That is my understanding from my agency and past epxeriences with CIS/INS.
so if no re-do of the whole paperchase part it is still 2k for me which sucks. Every little bit counts.
Some agencies don't require HS updates. Check with yours. Mine doesn't, so we don't have to get it updated no matter what.
It's 3:08 again... 3:06 is correct. We did have to have the criminal record's check redone (cost $10 each) and a DSS check redone. We also had to have someone come out to the house and say that our septic tank was in good working order. I guess China wants to make sure they're not sending their children to America to play in a backyard full of poo. Just kinding... I think it was a state thing.
Dear Anonymous 3:11,
My agency reminds us every month in their newsletter that "it's your responsibility to keep up with the expiration dates of your HS, fingerprints and INS approval." In Jan. my fingerprints were CLOSE to being expired and I had beg the USCIS in my area to give me an appointment QUICK... which they did... (Atlanta USCIS ROCKS!!!) Anyway, every month I think... geez... doesn't my agency think I'm paying them enough that they could give me a friendly little "heads-up" a month or two before something important expires? This is 2006... doesn't some nifty little computer program exist out there they could put all the important dates into and it would fire out a brief email to let me know something is close to expiring? Nope. It's "my responsibility:("
I want 3:17's agency.
3:14
Wow, you got to reuse your first homestudy? we had to completely do another, so we've already paid the 3k again, and will have to pay a couple of hundred to update that if we don't get a referral by Sept, which being Nov LID, I doubt we will.
The CCAA doesn't care when your homestudy expires. It is your particular state that has the rule. I live in Virginia, where the homestudy is valid for one year, then an update is needed. You need to check with the SW that completed your homestudy and find out what the *rule* is for your state.
I'm sure people already know this but GWCA just sent out an email confirming that referrals will be only May 26-May 30th. I wish it weren't so. My heart goes out to all the May 31 LID people...
According to my agency - it's the US Consulate that requires your homestudy to be current. We were told that if your homestudy will expire before your CA then it will need to be updated.
A word on homestudy updates. All states are different some are 12 months others are 18. Requirements vary from state to state as to what meeds to be redone. it shouldn't cost more than $500. Dossiers never expire for CCAA nothing will have to be reauthenticted. Fingerprints and I-171's do expire and need to be redone at 15 months and 18 months respectively. As far as I understand, you must have a valid homestudy when the referral comes; although I could be wrong on that. The consulate does not know the individual state expiration dates. At this rate most of us will have to redo at least our fingerprints. Many people have already redone their HS. It is a rather simple process.
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