No news is good news...

We got some news this week. It wasn’t “good news” per se but it was news. Many folks within the adoption community have already heard and now I’ll share it with the rest of you: our adoption agency, Harrah Family Services (HFS) is no longer in business. On one level, this is a shock and puts us in an odd position. On another level, given the economy, the changes in international adoption in China, and the overall lack-luster professional acumen of our agency, it really isn’t a great surprise.

The good part of the news is that we have a new agency. Judging by the conference call we listened in on last night, they are very committed, very experienced, and most importantly, very professional. This is the only comfort I can see at this point in the entire situation.

“We’re closing”

For many of us in the adoption community, bits of news, rumor, and support are passed via one of any of the hundred or so Yahoo Groups, or “message boards”, that have been set up for just that purpose. On Monday, a notice was posted to our HFS Yahoo Group that the agency will no longer exist. Wow! We were notified as well that we can choose to continue our adoption with another agency and that our paperwork will be sent to that agency, Chinese Children Adoption International (CCAI). Ileana and I each reacted to the news differently. Ileana sprung into action, connecting through the “boards”, firing off e-mails, joining new boards (a hilarious side-story on its own), and connecting to others couples in our situation as well as a "meddlers" who are not but want to "help out" anyway. Personally, I added this item to continuingly growing list of items that have made me more skeptical about this particular adoption and about international adoption in general.

As the idea settled in a little more, how this was being handled by HFS became a bit more un-nerving. I guess I expected that we’d get follow up personal e-mails or maybe even an official letter explaining the situation, what we needed to do, how we would transition to the new adoption agency, etc. Instead, the news continued to come, in dribs and drabs through the boards. HFS stated that they had no intention of doing any alternative communication. Double wow! Talk about dropping the ball! I guess their concern for the folks that are not as internet-savvy as Ileana and I is not so great. Frankly, their concern for now former clients in general must not be such a big deal to them either.

Let the Flaming Begin

One of the things that make sorting out the situation difficult is the varied information that was coming across the boards at the same time as pertinent info about the “transition”. Many well-meaning families had posts of thanks and recollections about past wonderful experiences that they had had due to HFS. We too had such fantastic experiences but unfortunately it is difficult to muster good will towards someone that is in the process of screwing you so we found little comfort in these. There were also folks that were extremely pissed and used the boards as a way to vent their frustrations about getting screwed. This wasn’t particularly productive but at least I could empathize with some of these folks. By far the most confounding yet sometimes most entertaining static clogging up the boards were the stupid questions.

What, you think there are no stupid questions? I know that teachers are told to tell students here are “no stupid questions”. Who ever began this notion should be dug up, drawn and quartered, and then reburied. Anyone that has ever been to any school, lecture, seminar, you name it, knows that there ARE stupid questions and it is a little tough to get to the important ones if people are asking too many dumb ones. There were important questions that were not getting answered: Who should we speak with to get transitioned to CCAI? How and when are we to pay any additional fees to the new agency? Are there any radical changes in the adoption process with the new agency? Frankly, if you are so concerned and have a specific question, you really should pick up a phone and start to talk with someone, shouldn’t you? This is particularly important since everything that had transpired so far was being done amidst the chaos on the boards.

The call

Two of the people that were wading through this mess had a stroke of genius: let’s set up a conference call and speak with CCAI about this. GENIUS! Obviously HFS doesn’t give two shits about what is happening to its former clients so let’s turn to our “new” agency and see what they think. The call started last night at 8:00pm, our time, and what we found out is that CCAI does care and they actually had a lot to say about how we can transition to them.

The call with CCAI was a massive rush of fresh air that practically knocked us over. On the line were no fewer than 4 people from their agency including the agency’s founder. I could not fathom such a call with the HFS folks at any stage of our dealing with them. The folks at CCAI were very forthcoming with information and though they explicitly stated that they could never understand what we were all experiencing, they did an excellent job at seeming to be very empathetic and accommodating to our needs. We still have many questions but at least we now have a place to turn to get some guidance.

Next steps

For now, amidst the angst, skepticism, and overall confusion, it appears that we will be continuing the adoption process with CCAI. We are fortunate to have a good friend that adopted through them who will serve as a major resource. Our notion of a trip that might, in some small way, mirror our previous trip will need to change but so will a lot of things. Two and a half years have passed so far and it will likely be two or more additional years before we get a referral so I am sure that a lot will change.

Thirteen

Months, that is since we were logged in. And we haven't moved up the line much either. Referrals were out last week and dossiers with a LID date thru 1/9/06 have gotten their referrals. So for now we are still in the same ol' pattern of waiting, waiting, waiting. We have updated our homestudy, and we are getting re-fingerprinted on Friday. Fun stuff! Good times! Ok, that is all I have for right now, sorry..........

Happy New Year?

Well, here is where we stand:
Pretty pathetic, really. The CCAA only matched 5 days in this last batch. We were hoping they would at least finish out 2005 in 2007 but that wasn't the case. There are a lot of theories, rumors, speculations about why the tremendous slowdown but no one knows the answer for sure. We are hoping that possibly once the Summer Olympic games are over, there will be a slight speed up. But until then, we just wait.

It's been 7 months.........

So now 7 months into our wait, and they just finished referrals for those logged in the month on November 2005. Yes, that is not a misprint, 2005! So the wait has been 23 months for those families. When they were logged in, way back then, the wait was 7 months. I really can't imagine thinking you would have your baby in 7 months, and it ends up being 2 years. We knew, this time around that the wait was going to be very long. Unfortunately, no one seems to know at this point, how long. At this point in our first adoption, we were leaving 2 weeks later for China.

So now we wait, & watch, hoping the CCAA speeds things up, although it does not look promising.

But we are going to try to do a few more posts here, since we've had 612 visitors with no posts being made!

We have our LID

I have to commend everyone. Contrary to what we originally thought, we have not been inundated with calls and posts about the status of the adoption. Knowing how people typically behave in cyberspace - where it is very easy to speak ones mind, say something inappropriate, or too convenient not to post a question, we consider this a big deal. So to all of the readers of this site: congratulations!

Now for some news. Today, we received the following e-mail from our agency:

Hi Christopher and Ileana, Congratulations!!

We received your LID of 03/08/07 today. This means that your dossier has begun it's journey through CCAA, heading for your referral. Right now, referrals are running about 16 months from LID; however, this can change with very little notice.

So that's it, another minor hurdle has been cleared. We'll keep you up to date as things progress. In the meantime, keep up the good work by not bothering us too much.

It's Official

We received an e-mail from our adoption agency yesterday telling us that our Dossier was on it's way to China. In adoption circles we say that, "we are DTC". This might confuse some people who may mistake us for "Danish Touringcar Champions", "Diversified Technology Consultants", or part of the "Delaware Theater Company". I have now become one of those dads that I am suspicious of because when people ever ask me my DTC date, I would reply, "February 9, 2007" (at least for the next week, until I forget the actual date).

Oddly enough, as much hullabaloo that people make about being DTC, my wife informs me that this doesn't really mean much because we still need to get logged in and get our LID (log in date) from the CCAA (I think I have already told you what these letters mean in a previous blog and since I can't think of that right now, you'll just have to scroll down to figure it out.)

We still have a lot of hurdles to get over - to get our LID and feel more comfortable that we will not be affected by the "New Regulations" - this will occur when our dossier is actually reviewed in a couple months. We willthen have the wait and finally get our referral. If it seems overwhelming, it is but I will explain it all as the story develops.

Regardless of the relative insignificance of this as a date, we celebrated at our favorite local Chinese Restaurant, the New Star. Actually, Ileana likes it more for the Mai Tai served in Tiki mugs more than anything else. At the end of the meal, we all anxiously opened our fortune cookies. Sophie's seemed to be the most appropriate. Ileana got the one about standing in her own light - whatever that means. Mine indicated that it may be in my best interest to come clean about my relationship with Anna Nicole.

Timing, Abbreviations, Acronyms and other fun stuff

The last time we adopted, we started our blog the day before we left for China. Since we are a little more seasoned at this now, we are starting it at an earlier stage of our process.

We submitted all of our authenticated paperwork for our dossier to our adoption agency on January 15th. To get to this point, we have already done a lot of work. This might be a nice record in the future but it is also something that people currently engaged in this process are dying to know.

We applied for our I600A on November 7th.
This is our official filing date with the USCIS.
We were fingerprinted by a private investigator for the state on November 11th.
We had medical examinations the first week in November.
Our home study was received by USCIS on December 29th.
We received our letter for fingerprinting on January 5th and were fingerprinted by USCIS on the 6th.
We received our 171H on January 27th.
The following will be updated but:
We hope to be DTC by February 9th.
We hope to be LID by March 9th.

During our previous adoption, I was always suspect of any father that could recite his LID or DTC dates (I was suspect even if they knew what this stuff was). To this day, I still don't know when we were DTC, LID, or even referred Sophie. This time around, I am taking a different approach and will actually educate myself a little more on this process. I still can't guarantee that I will ever remember these dates but at least I now have them written down so that I can check back for reference.

So what do these letters above mean? Here is a quick dictionary.
USCIS - United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
DTC - Dossier to China. The dossier is all of our paperwork.
LID - Log in Date. This is when all of our paperwork is logged in by the CCAA.
CCAA - China Center of Adoption Affairs, the government office set up to handle adoptions.

We hope to have our referral in 24 months - yes, you read that correctly, 24 months. So all of you who feel like asking us if we have heard anything before December '08, please don't. We have a long road ahead. Due to the new, more stringent requirements of the CCAA, we are still not sure if we will be allowed to adopt. This, coupled with the upcoming Olympics and the ever-changing geopolitical landscape, makes us a little apprehensive about shouting the news of our impending adoption to the world.

I don't know how often we'll be updating this blog. I guess it all depends on how arduous the wait is. Stay tuned.

-Chris