Wednesday, March 29, 2006

You've Got Mail!

Or at least we did. Today we received the elusive big brown envelope from the Department of Homeland Security. Yep, our fingerprints have been approved and now we can send our documents to China (well, actually, our agency will need a few weeks to authenticate all of our documents first, then they are off to China)!

The other mail we received, via e-mail, was from our agency explaining about the current delays in the China adoption program. As it stands now, even if they consider us an expedited family (due to my husband's Chinese heritage), we will probably not be traveling to get our daughter during 2006.

Here is an excerpt from our agencies e-mail:

CHILD ASSIGNMENT TIMES - If you have been monitoring the assignment of children from China, you are aware that for the past four months, the waiting time for child assignments has been steadily increasing. There have been numerous explanations for this such as larger than normal volume of applications, lost time because of holidays, etc. For families directly affected by this recent change in assignment practice, the reason is not as important as the event itself.

As our recent monthly updates have indicated, CCAA has been assigning children to only a partial month of login dates at a time (covering approximately 14 days). Since assignments are generally made once per month, this has had the effect of steadily increasing waiting times. Yesterday, this pattern changed again when CCAA assigned children to only 6 days of May 2005 login dates (May 25 through May 30th). We do not know whether the assignment of only several days of login dates will continue in the months ahead, however if CCAA continues to assign only a partial month of dossiers once per month, then waiting times will continue to increase. At this time, we have no clear indication of what will happen with the next few month's child assignments; but if the present pattern (of assigning a partial month of login dates) does not change, we expect waiting times to continue to rise even further. Information about the number of days of login dates that will be included in the next group of assignments is not available from CCAA at this time.

FOR FAMILIES WHO DO NOT YET HAVE A DOSSIER LOGIN DATE - From the date that dossiers are express mailed from our office, it has been taking CCAA up to 4 weeks to log in dossiers. Three to four weeks is now common. Additionally, it has been taking significantly longer for CCAA to notify us of the log in date for some groups. It has been explained that the work volume at CCAA is the cause of longer log in and agency notification times. CCAA logs in dossiers in the order in which they are received and when the staff's work volume allows it. Please be assured that we carefully monitor receipt of your dossier by CCAA and receipt of log in dates and we will inform you of your log in date just as soon as the information is released by CCAA. It will take up to 60 days to receive written verification of your login date from the time that your dossier is sent to China.

This is not encouraging.

19 comments:

Kristin said...

Do you think the CCAA would cotton to a rather large group of women volunteering to come in and help sort through their backlog? I would be happy to help file and stamp and sort... catch them up to speed as it were...

Oh well, at least you can enjoy this special time with Leah.

Georgia said...

Although there's nothing great in there, it's still nice to hear an agency address the issue. And it's nice to know they don't have information they're just not telling us. right?

Jen R. said...

Can you post something encouraging please..we need encouraging posts, woman!

Puddin' said...

Wow. At least your agency tries to explain things. As discouraging as the email is, at least it's something...

Lisa and Tate said...

BROWN IS GRAND!!!! Congrats on the brown envelope.... It really stinks about the slowdown... hence I will bake to distract me from my disappointment!!!

Lisa

Kim said...

Ugh, not great news, that's for sure. But at least they're not keeping you in the dark.

Elle said...

No, that in not encouraging. I wish our agecny would give us some definitive information -that was I can prepare myself.

Elle said...

Um... I can't type today.

Karen and Jon said...

Congrats on "The Golden Ticket". No, the news isn't good. However, thank you so much for sharing what you know from your agency. I'm trying to "hope for the best" yet "prepare for the worst" - I just don't know what the worst is.

Tammy said...

The 'Brown envelope' is a leap in the right direction. I hope, for you & all who are waiting for referrals, that CCAA picks up the pace & we start to see referrals covering full months. It is pretty discouraging. UGH!

One thing I've learned through our process is that you just never know what will happen with the referral times. It may be hitting bottom now & head back up soon. Wishful thinking right?

rubyiscoming said...

Lucky you getting the illustrious brown envelope....nada for us yet!

Lisa~~ said...

Not the news you want to hear from your agency, but it's good to hear something and know upfront what is going on. Congrats on brown, brown is good.

Juliet said...

That truly is discouraging. But at least they told you what was going on, and you aren't left in the dark about it. I know that doesn't make it any easier, though. *hugs*

Juliet said...
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Joannah said...

RQ has some good news today, if we can believe it. Looks like referral times will (at some point) fall into an 8-12 month span. I'm going with the shorter end of that span! ;-) I'm going to believe that I'll be traveling next summer sometime (provided I'm LID in 7/06!).

glo said...

Glad you got some news, een if it isn't exactly what you were hoping for. I hate this waiting for news...any news time of this adoption process.

Anonymous said...

I don't know if you should be so sure you won't travel by the end of the year if you DTC soon. Expetdited referrals are falling in the 4-6 month range. I am hoping to travel in fall with a 2/24 DTC and 3/15 LID. Don't give up hope yet!

M3 said...

Congratulations on getting the brown envelope! It's a good sign of progress. It will still be a long road but hey it helps to celebrate every milestone if you ask me. Your agency's email is a bummer, no doubt, although I give them a lot of credit for being honest and not trying to hide anything.

Katie J said...

What can brown do for you? Everything! Congrats!

Can't tell you how sorry I am that the wait times have increased so much just since we went. I hope you get there this year!