Happy Spring!

I can hardly believe May is here already! When we mailed our documents out in July, we fully expected to be home with our little one by now, but you all are well aware that we're not . . . I still think we're about three months away from a referral (then another two months to travel), but I could be wrong. There's nothing to do but wait and see!

People keep asking the reason for the wait, and we can really only guess at it. It does appear, though, that two things are happening 1) a larger number of people than usual applied to adopt from China in the months before we did and 2) there are fewer babies eligible and ready to be adopted, possibly because improving economic conditions means fewer babies are abandoned, and more likely because officials are taking more time and care with the paperwork. Either way, we are assured we WILL have our baby -- we just don't know when. You'll all just have to be patient with us!

The Chinese government just last week announced it had matched babies with folks whose dossiers were logged in by June 6 (we were logged in July 25). The best news about this is that the folks in our agency's May dossier group -- whose documents were logged in June 2 -- have now been matched with their babies. We are SO THRILLED for these families, who really were hit hard by the delays. We're hearing that some of the babies are as young as 6-7 months old, which is exciting news for us, too. We are hoping for an infant, too, but are worried that we are growing older along with our paperwork!

Meanwhile, I decided to take a few days off work for a little vacation. I'm visiting my friend Debi in Spokane, and we're having a wonderful time. I should return to Naperville later this week fully recharged and ready to go back to work.