Halloween has come and gone and I found myself wondering what it’s going to be like once we have our little one(s). At my office, the Preschool on the 1st floor always herds their kids around for treats. They typically have three or four different groups of kids - - it’s kind of cute. They all march around our office in their little costumes with their candy bags held out. Too funny. Their eyes are so wide and their attention spans are for naught. We always have fun when they come through.
Since receiving the disappointing news last week about the twins’ paperwork not going out yet, I decided that my curiosity couldn’t wait so I contacted Betty and reminded her that is was now November. “What’s happening?!” I told her I would love to share some great news with our family on Thanksgiving!! (That’s just the recruiter in me - - I should know better than to try to “close” the folks responsible for our adoption!)
She responded right away, but said that their FTIA Beijing staff had been in touch with Director Ye again and she said that the paperwork would be submitted to the provincial Civil Affairs Bureau around 11/17 (UGH!!!). She said that once the files go there, we may not know how long before they send them to the CCAA but was hopeful that it would be in time for the next group of Special Needs files. She thought Thanksgiving might be “overly optimistic,” but perhaps Christmas might be a safer bet. (Sigh…again.)
Okay…so now I will hope and pray for the most wonderful Christmas EVER! Wouldn’t it be awesome to get the news before Christmas?! Omigosh! Time to start buying baby stuff! We’ll see. For now…we’re “one day closer.”
I asked Betty if she knew what the hold up was. I also asked her to help me to understand what the process is on the China side when the paperwork is submitted to the provincial Civil Affairs Bureau. I wasn’t quite sure what that their process was. (FTIA always does such a great job of educating us on what to expect with our dossiers and what to expect.) My guess was that it was all a part of getting their dossiers ready.
She wrote back and stated that I was right in my thinking. The orphanage starts the paperwork for a child to be adopted. They then forward the paperwork onto the provincial level authority, which is the Civil Affairs Bureau (for the boys' province of Jiangxi, this would be in Nanchang). This is where we would actually go when in China to do our adoption paperwork. Once the CAB has done whatever it is that they do to the paperwork, they forward the file onto the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) in Beijing. They then review the file and prepare it for submitting to (hopefully) FTIA in order to find a family (us!!!).
She said that the problem is we never know how long a child's file will take to get through this process. Sometimes it is pretty quick, sometimes it takes months! If the Orphanage Director is pushing it, maybe the boys' files will go through quickly. (Fingers crossed!!)
Since Betty also copied Amy Eldridge in on all the correspondence so that we were all in the loop, Amy also sent her own response which was quite insightful.
“Kristine, an orphanage will put together a child’s adoption file, which includes their medical and their growth information, etc, and then it goes to provincial CA for them to put their seal of approval on it. Some provinces won’t send through every file. I think it is a ‘face’ issue that they only want kids they can be proud of to go through. Guangdong province was notorious for this. They used to interview all the kids over 3 before they would approve them for adoption. It used to drive me crazy because if a child was shy or non responsive to the interviewer, they would get denied. Other provinces just basically stamp every file as accepted.It’s amazing to me to think that ANY child would be denied approval. (It’s heartbreaking, really.)
Jiangxi province is really good at moving files through, so I don’t think there is anything to worry about. I have only seen a few kids from Shangrao not have their files approved at the provincial level but they had severe special needs. I have no doubt that the boys will get through. They are the picture of health now.
After provincial Civil Affairs approves the file, they send it to Beijing where it is logged in at the CCAA. Hope that helps.
Amy”
So now…we’ll wait a few more weeks and see what happens.
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