Many Still Wait

Between publishing my welcome post on Friday and today, I have been a bit panicked and indecisive…what should I write about for my very first Talking About Adoption post? Should I write something new? Should it be funny or serious? Should I write about traveling to China a year ago this week to adopt our second daughter? Would it be okay to post something that I’ve already posted elsewhere? After much consideration and consultation with my best friend and cheerleader, I decided to republish my post on waiting with a few tweaks here and there. This is why my friend who happens to be nine months into her referral wait suggested that I post this again…

The China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) sent out referrals last week. On Thursday and Friday several hundred families received the call from their agency that they have anticipated for oh so long. These families waited between 435 and 450 days for their referral from the time that their dossier was logged in…in addition to the time that it took to get their dossier to China, translated and logged in. That’s about 14 months from log in…give or take a week or two. This is not how they planned it when they sent their dossier last summer. At that time, referrals were coming about 6 – 7 months after log in. Now the wait has more than doubled, fingerprints and 171-H forms are expiring. Waiting families need to pay more fees to have documents renewed, emotions are running high and rumors of even longer waits continue to be posted on chat groups around the world.

My heart aches for all the waiting families who long for their child and who never thought that they would wait this long. It is not any easier the second (third, forth or fifth) time. It is not any easier if you have children at home to fill your days and keep you busy. Regardless of what you have going on in your life right now, your child is never far from your thoughts. I hope that my “take” on the wait will let you know that those of us who have “been there and done that” understand and that we are compassionate to your fears and frustrations. And, I hope that you’ll chuckle a little too!


Throughout the paperwork phase of the adoption process there are many opportunities to practice patience while waiting. We wait for approvals, paperwork, appointments, and more paperwork. And, finally for one ordinary piece of paper saying that we can indeed adopt a child in China.

There is no denying it; waiting is hard. But, when we are waiting to see the face of our child the wait feels forever and at times unbearable. Waiting for a child to be assigned to us by someone in China is not like waiting to give birth to a child. Although I have never waited to give birth to a child, I’m quite sure this is a fair statement. In the case of a pregnancy, there is a general idea when the baby will arrive within a few weeks or days. With Chinese adoptions, we start out with a general idea of how long it is taking from the time a dossier is logged until a referral is made, but that timeline is not firm. As we all know, the wait time can increase or decrease at any time, without any warning or explanation. An unexplained decrease in the wait time would be quite nice right about now!

There is a state of initial giddiness at actually sending your dossier to China. I felt as if the stick had finally turned pink or had a plus sign or whatever those pregnancy tests do these days. Milestones are achieved throughout the wait something akin to trimesters. The movement of our dossier through the CCAA offices carries us along through our paper pregnancy. Throughout each phase, anticipation and anxiety escalate with the knowledge that we’re one step closer. The trouble with the “adoption-mesters” is that we don’t know how long each phase will be and ultimately how long we will wait for our child. It is just downright difficult – this waiting.

The adoption process is often described as a rollercoaster ride and the time spent waiting is the triple loop hanging upside down by your ankles part of the ride. It’s exhilarating, you wonder what in the world you have gotten yourself into, you feel like you need to scream and you might possibly throw up at any moment. And, just when you think that you’ve got yourself under control…the ride starts all over again going backwards! What can you do, but hold on tight and go for the ride.

My husband and I have two daughters who we adopted in China. Sometimes I worry that my words to waiting families seem hollow. The words of encouragement that I offer are not insincere by any means. But, I worry that someone in the midst of a long wait with no conceivable end in site will find it hard to believe that I understand when I already have my children in my arms. I’ve told families that the anxiety of the wait will fade as soon as they gaze upon their child’s face for the first time and it will become a distant foggy memory once your child is placed in your arms. This is true…to a point. While I don’t deliberately live each day with the memory of waiting for each one of my daughters, I can vividly recall the emotions and anxieties that I experienced with each wait. It’s part of the creation of our family of four.

During the wait for our first child, my arms ached with the anticipation of holding her. In the midst of the wait for our second daughter, I started to panic that I wasn’t going to be able to love another child as much and as deep as I loved my first daughter. In the heat of the summer of 2003 I was certain that I would never be a mother as we experienced delay after delay and the rumors ran rampant. The wait time sped up soon after we submitted our dossier for a second time and I panicked that I wasn’t going to be ready to receive a referral in six months. Again, the rumors were widespread and emotions heightened.

Ultimately, I got through each wait knowing that God would not present me with more than I could handle. That if I remembered to take time to enjoy what I had at this very moment, the next moment would come and that moment would finally be my child being placed in my arms. And, after that moment, there would be many more to fill the days and years to come.

God bless all of you who are waiting. I am familiar with your hopes and dreams as well as your anxiety and fears. I wish you peace as you wait and look forward to sharing your joy.