I must admit I took a quick peek at the RQ site yesterday morning and then I re-banned myself from it. The wait was going pretty quickly for awhile and then last week was the slowest, most stressful week I've had in a long time. I got a little crazy so no more RQ for me. Hopefully I can hold out at the end of the month once it gets to be referral time again. I need to start a support group for RQ addicts. I'm off to a good start, I think. I deleted the site from my favorites.
We had a busy weekend. We went to the PTAG (parent travel advisory group) at our agency. It's run by volunteer families who have already been to China and they explain a little about "the call" and the trip to China. It was really interesting and informative. The mother who ran it was so cute. She teared up every time she started talking about her daughter. We both had tears in our eyes several times. I'm sure we'll be the same way once we have our daughter. The director of the agency came in to talk to us for a little while. She's such a kind woman. You can just see the warmth in her eyes when she speaks. She knew the big question on everyone's minds was about the wait. She said the reason for the ever-increasing wait is what the CCAA has been saying. There are more dossiers from parents than there are paper-ready children. The reason for the increase in parent dossiers is that China still has the most stable adoption program. Several other countries have either closed their programs or become so unstable that people are afraid to even apply so everyone is going to China to adopt. Another issue is children being paper-ready. There are several factors that go into being paper-ready. One is the Hunan scandal (children being kidnapped and sold) so now children have to get police clearance showing that they really were abandoned and not kidnapped. The director said the police don't want to issue clearances to some of the children who were already in orphanages when this scandal came out because they can't verify that they were indeed abandoned so many children are there but they can't be placed for international adoption without the police clearance. Another factor is that orphanages have to meet certain standards in order to be able to place children for international adoption and a lot of orphanages don't meet the standards and can't place children. She didn't seem to have a sense of whether the wait would continue to increase or not but she did say that with China it's a matter of "when" and not "if" so it will happen.
After the meeting, we went to lunch at P.F. Chang's. I had been craving it ever since the mom's shower we had a couple of weeks ago. We really enjoyed our lunch and relaxing and talking about Ming. After lunch we took a walk through Beacon Hill and went into the cutest children's clothing store. I found so many things I wanted to get for Ming. I'm trying hard to be good and not buy too many outfits since I don't know what size to buy. I did find a cute rubber ball with ladybug spots that I had to buy as well as a fabric book about shapes and colors that had ladybugs in it. So cute!
Sunday morning was my Chinese class. It's pretty difficult for me but I like it. I love the teacher. She's so nice. I've had to miss some classes because of my trips so I'm a little behind. She stayed a little late to help me go over some of the new words.
After class I went with a friend to the Christmas Craft Festival. It's about an 1/8 of the size of the Christmas Showcase in San Antonio but we had a good time. I managed to find some presents for Ming, of course. She got a couple of ladybug ponytail holders, a pink ladybug jewelry box, a ladybug hooded towel (anyone sensing a theme?), a couple of fabric books and a little storage box that she can use for car trips that has a chalkboard on the front. Of course the chalkboard has a ladybug on it and I had her name put on there. I love having things personalized for her. I get so giddy whenever I see her name on anything. It really makes me feel like a mommy. It's amazing how motherhood changes people. I've always been a shopper and I used to buy tons of clothes and shoes for myself. Now I really need some new work clothes but whenever I go shopping I get distracted in the baby section and I get home so happy with my purchases and I realize that everything I bought is for Ming. :) Just imagine how things are going to be once she's actually home. I'm going to be completely out of control. Won't it be great?
