Nineteen months and counting

We've officially made it to nineteen months since our LID. Wow! Things are moving at a snails pace in the world of China adoptions right now.

The CCAA, China Center of Adoption Affairs, has stated that they expect the wait to grow to three years. I feel for those people behind us in line because it looks like the line is going to be moving slower and slower as time goes on.

Right now, I'm pretty confident in thinking that our referral will come in September, but sure that we'll be referred by October. There are only 13 days before us so an average of five days per month gets us a referral in September. An average of four days get us there in October.

Five Days per month

July 8 - refer through Nov 12
Aug 9 - refer through Nov 17
Sept 10 - refer through Nov 22
Oct 12 - refer through Nov 27

Four Days per month

July 8 - refer through Nov 11
Aug 9 - refer through Nov 15
Sept 10 - refer through Nov 19
Oct 12 - refer through Nov 23

Family Updates

We have good news and bad. The good news is that my brother and sister-in-law are pregnant. After years of trying, they are beginning their second trimester. How exciting.

The bad news is that my other brother had been called up to go to Afghanistan. He's already done a year in Iraq now he's going back to the middle east. We're not sure when he's going, but hopefully not too soon.

Predictions

A very mathematically inclined person on the rumors site made these predictions looking at the last two years and using mathematical software. It would be wonderful if his predictions turn out to be accurate, but I'm not getting too excited. A lot would depend on the volume of dossiers that China has to deal with this year compared to in past years. I still thought that it would be fun to add this to the site to look back on in case it ends up being accurate.

Here's his predictions:

For those of you who like curve fits, here is what I have (x-axis is referral date and y-axis is LID, the numerical values are numerical conversions of dates that is done in my graphing software, KaleidaGraph):

Before Sep 05: y = 6.69e+7 + 0.974x, R= 0.999 (original rate, this one is ignored)Sep 05 to Mar 06: y = 1.60e+9 + 0.496x, R= 0.998 (curve 1)Jun 06 to Mar 07: y = 1.66e+9 + 0.476x, R= 0.999 (curve 2)

Calculated

Referral date - - LID - - Referral Month
5/16/2007 - 11/01/2005 - May (Actual)
5/20/2007 - 11/01/2005 - May (Actual)
5/24/2007 - 11/02/2005 - June (Actual)
5/28/2007 - 11/03/2005 - June (Actual)
5/31/2007 - 11/03/2005 - June (Actual)
6/10/2007 - 11/07/2005 - June (Actual)
6/20/2007 - 11/12/2005 - July
6/30/2007 - 11/16/2005 - July
7/10/2007 - 11/21/2005 - August
7/20/2007 - 11/25/2005 - August
7/30/2007 - 11/30/2005 - August
8/09/2007 - 12/04/2005 - September
8/19/2007 - 12/09/2005 - September
9/03/2007 - 12/16/2005 - September
9/13/2007 - 12/20/2005 - October
9/23/2007 - 12/25/2005 - October
10/3/2007 - 12/29/2005 - October

Grooming Day

Daisy got a fur cut today. Take a look under Gabby's Links.

Referrals Are Here

The referrals are in and the babies are beautiful. Congratulations to all the new parents and thanks for posting the pictures.

Well, the referrals only went through November 7. They only referred six days again...UGH! So, assuming that we continue on this trend and it takes approximately 32 days, hopefully no longer, for referrals to come out:

July 8 - Refer through Nov 13
Aug 9 - Refer through Nov 19
Sept 10 - Refer through Nov 25
Oct 12 - Refer through Dec 1

With an LID of Nov 21, it looks like September is probable even if July and August are referred less than six. After referral we wait about eight weeks to travel which means that we might celebrate Thanksgiving in China. Do they serve turkey there?

Post Format Change

I've decided to change the format of our blog a bit. I did have a separate updates page, but I thought it would be easier to see the updates on the home page. So, no more updates page. Just take a look here from now on.