A Few More Rumors...

Well... According to the RQ site - A few agencies are starting to talk about referrals. One is saying they are “about to start matching”, another is saying they think referrals will arrive next week.

I’m not seeing anything that tells me agencies are hearing cut off information.

Amazingly, I have been very peaceful over the last couple of weeks; I've tried not to think about this too much. However, if I said it wasn't one of the first thoughts to cross my mind when I awoke I'd be lying and if I said I didn't think about it nearly 1,000 times a day, I'd be lying, but I haven't had that 'anxious' feeling.

After reading today's post though, I am starting to get a little excited - the thought that our paperwork will soon be in the hands of someone who will make the decision to match our daughter with our family seems a little surreal.

Here's keeping our fingers crossed that next week is the week...

No New Rumors...

Bummer...There are no rumors floating anywhere! This leads us to believe that it will definitely be early to mid February when we see our daughter's face, but we know that she will definitely be worth it!

Just a reminder that the CCAA will break for Spring Festival around February 12th so we estimate that this is the latest that they would ship the next batch of referrals. Until then, we will wait:)

Where is that stork????

How The Matching Room Works…

Well, since the CCAA will be looking at our file any day to match us with our daughter/sister, I thought it would be good to post some information on how the matching room works. This excerpt is from the Rumor Queen website and is written in her words:

First, they review the baby dossiers and make sure there are no issues with them. We are told that they then count up all of the baby dossiers that are eligible for matching that month and then look to see how far this stack will go in the parent dossiers without sending out a partial day, and they pull all of those parent files. That is the likely cut-off date. Sometimes something happens and they don’t get this far. Sometimes something happens and they get farther.

Next they match orphanages up with agencies. This orphanage has six babies, this agency has six families. These two orphanages are in the same province and have a total of 12 babies, this agency has 12 families. When they are through with this is when (I believe) some agencies start to get information about the cut-off date. Or at least it is when they used to start getting information.

And then they start matching individual babies to individual families. At some point during this part of the process most agencies used to hear from their person in the matching room to let them know how many referrals they will be receiving and from what province(s). Some agencies shared this information with their clients. Some chose not to. Recently I’ve gotten the feeling that many agencies are still getting this information but they are being given orders by the CCAA to not share this information with the families.

Just as in the review room, each matcher is assigned certain agencies and is responsible for communicating with their agencies. Some matchers tell their agency the cut-off date, some matchers tell their agency “you have X number of referrals arriving”, some matchers give their agency a list of that agency’s families that will be receiving a referral. And some matchers don’t say anything at all to their agencies.

The next question that comes up is generally how the matchers match families and babies. I’ve heard from several people who have had the opportunity to speak with someone who works in the matching room. The various conversations seem to all agree that they first look for something that stands out: a matching birthday, a baby who looks a lot like a parent, or a baby who likes music and a parent who teaches music. Several matching people have stated they match by bone structure of the baby’s face and the parent’s faces (this is why they need our passport photos, so they can compare our mug shot with the baby’s mug shot). Some have stated that they used Chinese astrology, also. Once they’ve matched the obvious matches they then start to look at things like age of child requested. The age requested is not a priority for them, they feel they are matching families and not filling orders. And I have to say that they’ve done a wonderful job matching us and our Big Girl, and now I trust they will do an excellent job matching us with her little sister.

Well, hopefully, that gives you some idea of how we will come to know the child that will become our daughter/sister. We are getting anxious now that our time is near and are eager to see any sign of matching rumors to be posted!!! Take care and we will be in touch!

One Last Curveball…

Well, we were thrown one last curveball on Christmas Eve when it was announced that China matched dossiers with Log In Dates through April 3, 2006. As you know by now, our LID is April 4, 2006 so we missed this batch by one day –

CCAA Status

Reviewed through:
February 29, 2008

Placed through:
April 3, 2006

That would have been one sweet Christmas gift, but after feeling a little disappointed we realized that it is all good since we know that we will be included in the next batch – yeah!

The one question remains as to when that next batch will arrive – for that answer we searched the Rumor Queen site yet again…

If we were to look purely at numbers then the soonest we’d expect to see referrals would be Friday, January 22, the latest would be Thursday, February 18, and the most likely date would be Monday, February 1. And most months that’s all we need to do for the When post, look at raw numbers. But not this month, this month there is more to consider. We need to take CNY into consideration.

If the CCAA is going to mail a batch on or around February 12, then that could possibly mean we aren’t likely to see another batch until somewhere around that date. But by the time they arrived that would be a 48 day interval. Could they do two 24 day intervals? It’s possible, sure. Should we hope for it? I think we should keep the possibility of both scenarios in mind and not get too attached to either. I think our best window in this case is that the next batch will arrive either around Wednesday, January 20 or Monday, February 15. (Give or take a few days, obviously). Unless the CCAA is no longer going to be concerned about clearing their desks before Spring Festival. Which, with a new director, is possible. But Spring Festival is a really big deal, and one of the important traditions around Spring Festival is cleaning up, so you come back to a new start.