Why Vietnam?

We have been planning to adopt an infant girl from China. Many of you may know that China is currently flooded with applications of people waiting to adopt. A conservative estimate of the number of people waiting is around 30,000. When a person submits all the paperwork (dossier) required to adopt, and it reaches China, they are given a Log In Date. This date is the official date from which the Great Wait begins. Our Log In Date is 9-20-06. The Chinese Government adoption office has a website that lists which date they are at for referring babies. At the present time, that date is 11-01-05. As you can see, there is almost a whole year between our date and the current date. One of the reasons behind this delay is that the Chinese government does not have enough babies that are ready to be adopted internationally. The other reason is that there are so many people waiting to adopt. To put it crudely, there is a supply-demand problem.

Starting May 1st, the Chinese government implemented new regulations for people adopting. These regulations are to limit the number of people who are eligible to adopt. Since we already had our log in date, we would not be affected by these new regulations. But, with changes in the amount of income people need, limits on any health issues, medications, etc., this will significantly reduce the number of new applications sent to China. Some people suggest that these new regulations may decrease the waiting time, while others say that this is just not possible. Realistically, we would not see a referral for our baby until the summer of 2008, and that is probably pushing it.

The adoption community took a big hit a couple of weeks ago when the latest batch of baby referrals were sent out by China. Since the slow down began, it is common for China to send out 2 or 3 weeks of referral dates at a time. For instance, people with log in dates between 10-1-05 and 10-15-05 would get referred a baby. In this last batch, only 2 days were referred. No one is exactly sure why, and the adoption community is still reeling about this, and also wondering, "what next?" I have been told by my adoption assistant that she does not feel China would completely close down adoptions with people still waiting. This HAS happened with other countries, however, and you just don't know what can happen in Internation Adoption. China has every right to do whatever they want to with their adoption program. Whether they would close it or not, I am not sure.

With that bit of a background for you, Mike and I have just recently changed our adoption plans. While participating in an adoption rumor and chat board site (gotta love the Rumor Queen), I happened upon someone's posting regarding her adoption plans. After contacting her and getting a ton of information from her, and then contacting her adoption agency and assistant, we have decided to adopt an infant girl from Vietnam. The difference is enormous, and I am still absolutely in awe of the new process we will be going through. Since we already have our paperwork done for China, we will have to update a few documents because they are older than 6 months, but we will not have to start over. I have updated our new documents, and currently they are at the Secretary of State office to be authenticated. When I get them back, hopefully during the last week of May, they will have to be sent off to the Vietnamese Consulate in San Francisco for their official stamp. Then they will be on their way to Vietnam!!

Once in Vietnam, we can expect a referral anywhere from 0-30 DAYS. NOT WEEKS, NOT MONTHS.....DAYS. Once we receive our baby referral and agree that we will adopt this child, I will be travelling to Vietnam anywhere from 8-10 weeks later. So, what does this all mean? I will most likely be travelling to Vietnam, to bring home our baby daughter, in September. I could not be happier!!!

Also, when looking at China, we knew that our daughter would be, at the youngest, 9-10 months old. At the time of our Vietnam referral, our baby will be anywhere from 30 to 60 days old!!! Add another 8-10 weeks before I get her, and you can see that our daughter will be under 6 months old when I get her. Exciting!! :) This is wonderful, not only because I won't feel as if I'm missing important developmental steps....her first words, first crawl, fun stuff like that, but it's also best for attachment issues. And, while they try their very best to take care of the babies in the orphanage, nothing is as good as a mommy and daddy. Even if we don't know what we're doing!! :)