Worst Case Scenario

About 6 weeks ago, shortly after G. and I turned our dossier over to The Agency for submission to the CCAA in Bejing, we started trying to play guessing games about our referral. You'd think we'd know better by now, wouldn't you? I know its early, and nothing's predictible in adoption, but we were just guessing after all. What could it hurt? However, to estimate a referral you first have to have a Log In Date (LID). That is the day your dossier is officially received by the CCAA.

If you remember, our dossier to China date (DTC) was 01/20/06. Generally, dossiers from clients of The Agency are logged in about 3 weeks after LID. Now, sometimes you don't find out for a few more weeks, but by then, part of your referral wait has already passed. And lately, they seemed to be coming more quickly. One friend, with a DTC of 12/02/05, not only had a 12/19/05 LID, but she found out about it before the end of the year. We were DTC just before Chinese New Year, so we knew that might add a few extra days since all of China parties like its 1999 for an entire week during CNY. Fine. No problem. Nothing we could do about it anyway, but no big deal.

We figured one of three things would happen:
1) It Would Be Great, But Not Bloody Likely: The Agency's staff in Bejing translated that sucker faster than they had ever translated anything ever before and got it to the CCAA in record time. Even with the CNY slowdown, if we were really lucky we would have a LID of 02/03/06 or 02/10/06.
2) This Is Your Best Bet: The Agency's staff in Bejing took an average time to translate and CCAA logged it in just as they normally would. It would be just like any other dossier they received for the last year or so. LID would be 02/17/06 or 02/24/06. CNY is a major holiday after all.
3) The Absolute Worst Case Scenario: The Agency's staff in Bejing partied during CNY so hard they didn't realize the holiday was over and kept partying. When they finally came to, the CCAA would take an entire month (the most time allowed) to officially document that they had our paperwork. LID would be sometime in early March. I didn't even bother to consult a calendar for dates. THAT is how remote I thought this possibility to be.

So then we waited. Patiently. Really patiently. No, I mean really patiently. I was a model of god-damned restraint. Hard to believe, I know. But I was. I waited until late last week (5 weeks after DTC) before meekly asking our program director if, perhaps, they had heard anything, maybe??? Of course, she hadn't. And giving credit where its due, she is wonderful about keeping everyone up to date on the latest as soon as she hears.

Today, we finally got the big news. Wanna guess what our LID is? Oh, come on. Take a guess. Bet you can't.

03/02/06. Notice me NOT jumping up and down with joy. In fact, when I first saw the e-mail this morning, I cried. I tried not to, but I did. It still felt like our daughter wasn't getting any closer, that everything that could possibly get between us, was doing just that.

According to the CCAA, they received a record number of dossiers just before and just after CNY, which is why it took them so long to log it in.

We probably wont' have a referral until March 2007, with travel in May or June. A full 24 months after we started the whole process. And as hard as that is to fathom, as hard as that news is to deal with, I have to keep thinking that if we weren't persuing this adoption and going through this particular bit of pain and heartache, May or June of 2007 would still roll around, right on time, and we still wouldn't have a family. At least now that we have our LID, we know she is going to be with us, someday. Maybe not as soon as we'd like, but someday. And I guess, that for us, no matter what else happens, is the best case scenario of all.