Will things speed Up?

Everyday Greg and I read a website called China Adopt Talk. In the adoption community she is known as Rumor Queen. It has been a nice place for us to visit with others who are in the same boat as we are. I thought she did an excellent job explaining why things might have slowed down and if we can expect to see things speed up again.

Will things speed Up?

I don’t think I’m covering any new ground with this post. But I’ve seen people trying to work through some of the various theories out there and I figured we might as well put them all in one place.
Before we talk about what would have to happen in order for things to speed up, we must talk about why things slowed down. There are a variety of theories:

1. There are no longer that many NSN orphans in China.
2. There are plenty of orphans, but problems getting them made paper ready.
3. The CCAA has a yearly ceiling that they cannot go over, and that ceiling was lowered last year and then lowered again this year. The ceiling also includes SN children, so the more SN adoptions that happen the less NSN matches can be made.
4. The Chinese government wants to make the world think there is no orphan problem as we lead up to the Olympics. So they empty the orphanages out into foster care and say there are no more orphans. The long wait becomes proof that they have solved their orphan problem, since this proves there aren’t enough babies to adopt out.

Now, let me go through each of these.

1. There are no longer that many NSN orphans in China.

If this is the case then there can not be a speed up. If there are truly no more abandonments, or if domestic adoption has actually taken hold and the babies who are abandoned are being adopted, then IA is no longer needed in China.

2. There are plenty of orphans, but problems getting them made paper ready.

We are hearing word that all SWI’s can now send paperwork in. At least one agency has began working with an orphanage they are aware of that is full of babies that are not being made paper ready to help them prepare children’s paperwork for IA. If this is the reason then we might hope to see a slight speed up. I say slight because this problem would tell us that the orphanages previously sending paperwork are no longer capable of doing so, for whatever reason. So we would need to rely on orphanages not previously sending paperwork. So, this reason really isn’t that there are “plenty” of orphans, just that there are less than there used to be. If this one is true then I would expect to start seeing more babies in November.

3. The CCAA has a yearly ceiling that they cannot go over, and that ceiling was lowered last year and then lowered again this year. The ceiling also includes SN children, so the more SN adoptions that happen the less NSN matches can be made.

If this is true then we are stuck with what we have until someone tells the CCAA they can begin referring more NSN babies out than they’ve been allowed to do last year and this year. If this one is true then we also have some weird things that happen with attrition levels moving back and forth from NSN to SN, see the Attrition Logic Post for more information if you missed that entry.

4. The Chinese government wants to make the world think there is no orphan problem as we lead up to the Olympics. So they empty the orphanages out into foster care and say there are no more orphans. The long wait becomes proof that they have solved their orphan problem, since this proves there aren’t enough babies to adopt out.

This one gets more complicated. There are some who point out that if all they are interested in is the numbers that get reported then the last numbers that will be reported are this years numbers, in which case things might speed up starting with late November’s referrals, since those people will not complete their adoption until January of ‘08. If the State Department uses a different fiscal year then it could be even sooner than that. (Coincidentally, November is when we might expect to see a speed up from bringing in all of the SWI’s.)

However, if they want to be able to point to the actual wait as proof that there are no more orphans (and thus, no more abandonment problem) then we would not expect to see a change until after the Olympics.
And then there is the possibility that with the Olympics being China’s “Coming Out” Party, that things may never go back to the way they were. China will want to maintain the perception that they are now a First World Country and that they can “take care of their own”. Meaning they will want to keep up the illusion that there are no more abandonments and no more orphans.

So, back to our original question: Will things speed up?

I do not think that China just suddenly one month ran out of babies. They went from referring about a month every month to referring half months, and then went down from there. One would think that this would have been more gradual and not so sudden if it weren’t an artificially constructed “problem”.
I believe that some orphanages do have mostly SN babies and hardly any NSN babies. I believe that some areas of the country are more prosperous and that there truly are less orphans. A wonderful thing.
However, I am also aware of orphanages that are full of babies. And I’m aware of orphanages that have a small percentage of the babies now that they had years ago, but when families ask about how many babies are in foster care it brings the numbers back up to the same neighborhood they were in four or five years ago.
This means that I think there are babies available, and thus I believe a speed up is possible. I don’t believe it is probable, but I do believe it is possible.
If we are dealing with a quota, or with issues around the Olympics (and this could very well be that both of these are the case) then unless the theory is correct that they are only interested in published numbers, I don’t think we can hope to see a speed up anytime soon. If ever.