Wiggles and Giggles

We went to the Wiggles concert last weekend. When we got there, we found ourselves in the balcony, far far away from the stage, even though I asked for the best available seats on Ticket Master. To make matters worse, our camera was broken.

Fortunately, our professional childcare provider (Jamie) accompanied us to the event. She is just as much a Wiggles fan as Baby. She and Baby have waited for two years to see the Wiggles live. When she saw other little kids dancing around the stage she scooped Baby up and declared,"let see if they will say no to a two year old", and left. Esther, quick to pick up on the situation, scurried behind with Maddie (Jamie's daughter). I decided to follow them after a couple of minutes with Bo.

I asked the guard at the VIP section if I could bring Bo in, he looked at me like I was crazy, and said,"NO". A little embarrased, I hasten back to our seats. I noticed though that Jamie did not come back, and assumed that she found better seats somewhere in the economy section. Then, the unbelievable happened.

Scott and I looked down with amazement at Baby and Yeh wiggling right next to the stage, and Jamie standing a little bit behind, beaming with pride.

She was the one who took the pictures, with her hot pink cellphone.

We always knew that we were very lucky to have Jamie, but I never realized the scope of her virtuosity. The woman has skills that I will never have!

Pride and Prejudice

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single person in possession of a good mind , must be in want of strong opinions. However little known the feelings or views of such a person may be on his/her first entering a forum, his/her opinions must not be repudiated...

After spending too much time on Internet forums, it's my observation that people may have strong opinions, but their strongest opinion is about their own opinion. Myself included.

I guess that's what blogs are for, to expound on those opinions on one's own turf.

The Children's Bible

There was a thunderstorm last week. After some impressive thunder and lightening, BoBo exclaimed, "Mama Mama, God is angry!"

"Why do you think God is angry?" I asked, not wanting to miss an educational opportunity.

YehYeh, aka "Know It All", started to educate me about Noah. "it's going to rain for forty days and forty night!", she predicted as a matter of fact. BoBo nodded in agreement, looking very worried.

YehYeh proceeded to sing, "who built the ark, who build the ark..." for her multimedia presentation. "Noah, Noah" jointed the boys in refrain, to support their sister.

All together, for the finale, "brother Noah built the ark". Much clapping, thank you, thank you.

After the song, they took turns naming all the animals they can think of , including exotic creatures such as the mommy and daddy wombats.

Searching for more passengers, YehYeh enlisted Mary, Joseph, and their camel.

"Don't forget Sam!", BoBo shouted. He loves Samson, and just as much, the Sam in Green Egg and Sam. I think he thinks they are the same person.

"Two by two, three by three, four by four..." chanted the children in unison. "Then there was baby Jesus", YehYeh concluded.

Blasphemy, blasphemy, please forgive her God, for she knows not what she is saying.

Scott finally came home half an hour later. BoBo threw a tantrum because BaBa refused to build a boat.

"Why can't you build a boat", I implored.

"But I just finished twelve hours of surgery, now I have to build a boat?" Scott complained.

"Built him a boat while I make you some fried rice", I ordered.

BoBo got a paper boat, and Scott, some fried rice.

Then they all went to bed.

Amen

All About Me

When I first started blogging, I was stumped and a little frustrated with having to address the ubiquitous about me field. Now that I have blogged a bit, I understand the need to explain myself so what I write has a point of reference. To that purpose, I start.

About the Pictures. They are in jest. They are also from a long long time ago. They are roughly based on me, but not even my own relatives can recognize me looking at these photos. I am a little uncomfortable with posting personal pictures on a public blog, so I purposely choose photos that can not serve as an identifier. The baby pictures are from a year or more ago for the same reason. Besides, I don't have many recent photos. I am usually the one with the camera going "say cheese..". I dress my family nicely if I may say so, I am not so particular about my self, so I avoid being included in pictures. Don't want to spoil the effect.

About my faith. I surprise myself when I realize how much of what I write/think is based on my Christian believes. I would most definitely not characterize myself as a religious fanatic. I am a wayward Christian at best. I have not attended church regularly as an adult until now. Call does get in the way, but that's no excuse. I do work in a Catholic hospital that prays through the intercom periodically regardless of what I am doing at the time, I don't think that counts. I have trouble memorizing the books of the Bible, and whenever I try to improve my knowledge of the Bible, I get really stuck at the begets. I am hoping to find a Bible study group to help with that problem, I may first try some on line sources seeing that I am so attached to my computer. I am grateful to my grandmother for my faith, left to myself, I would probably have gotten lost.

My thought on parenting. I have been a mother for exactly four years come Aug 28,2007. I have been a daughter since the day I was born. How I feel about the parent child relationship reflects more on my relationship with my parents and the relationship of my aunts and uncles with my cousins than my experience as a parent. Good for us, but bad for my blogging career is that our family is not only not dysfunctional, it's almost overly non dysfunctional. For me, my relationship with my parents is unique and irreplaceable even if they drive me nuts sometimes. (vice versa I am sure). I am not sure how people who have gone through multiple divorces and multiple combinations of parents would feel about their parents. They might like all of them, but ? I really just don't know. I want all of my children to experience the same degree of certainty I experienced growing up, if that makes me selfish or insensitive to the needs of my daughter's birth parents, I can only apologize, but I must think of my (their) daughter first. Children do not belong to their parents for very long as it is. Very quickly they grow away from you and develop their own personalities, lifes, dreams, bad habits, whatever. Only the really young want to be around their parents all the time and sleep with them. (Define really young for yourself please, I think in my family the definitions may be a little older than the American norm.) As an adult, one has to choose to have a relationship with one's parents (not all do). That relationship needs to be periodically redefined and updated if the relationship is to remain meaningful. Kind of like a website?

On being an Asian woman. I do not represent the views of all Asian Americans women. I do think I represent a tiny niche that does not get a lot of press. My lack of insight on the sexual stereotyping of Asian women is a result of my inexperience with bars, night clubs and fraternities. And just to be honest, a lack of mammary glands. (too much info, too much info...) I just throw in my views to add to the overall picture. Don't want to be accused of not being thorough.

On my writing. Well, there's a reason that one does not need to pay to read it.

Addendum: On my husband. He insists that I mention him or he won't proof -read my blog. He's OK otherwise.

Was It Meant to Be?

I stumbled on a Korean adoptee blog today that bothered me more than others. The author also adopted from Korea, and has a bio daughter. She did not make her motivation to adopt clear on her blog. I do not find the author malicious in anyway. I do not believe her blog has an agenda or a cause. I think she writes about what she feels when she feels the need to write about it. I am almost certain that she is a pretty nice person, someone I would know from church etc. I felt the urge to respond to her opinions and observations, but I just don't have the heart to comment negatively on someone else's personal blog. She is not writing to me or for me. I read many of her recent entries to try to gain a more complete picture and to understand her writing style. The problem with reading blogs is that posts can be easily taken out of context. I think I read enough to know that while she appears happy with her life, she is not happy being a trans-racial adoptee.

What troubles me the most is her post that portrays adoptive parents as selfish insensitive people who thoughtlessly build their happiness upon the pain of the "birth parents". Specifically, she found adoptive parents' sentiment that the adopted children were "meant to be" their children distasteful and insulting to the children's birth parents. The fact that she over romanticizes the birth parents is obvious, or should be to anyone old enough to reproduce. Her reproach of parents who are just trying to express their love for their adopted children is not particularly charitable or helpful to those adopted. When I describe my relationship with my daughter as "meant to be", it does not imply that the events which lead to her adoption were also meant to be. Nothing bad that happens in our world is "meant to be". We chose with our free will to disobey God, and had to leave the Garden of Eden...after that, EVERYTHING was not meant to be. That is what is meant by the original sin. When I talk or think that my daughter is meant to be my daughter, I am talking about the grace of God that saves, protects, and blesses me, my daughter, her bio parents, infertile couples, China, USA, all of us, etc, despite all the things that are not meant to be. It's a miracle, and should be appreciated as such. Referring to my previous post, me, the child, her bio parents all knocked, and we were all answered, given the constraint of our inperfect word that is of our own doing. Please feel free to improve the world so the future is a better place. The past is what it is. I do understand and agree with her that there are adoptive parents with an attitude of entitlement that's hard to stomach. I complained quite loquaciously about them myself. But they are that way about everything in their life, they are not that way because they are adoptive parents. It dawn on me though, that her perspective is very much that of a sheltered American based on her somewhat romantic view of poverty, and child abandonment. while her views simply refect who she is and how she feels, they do lack insight and scope. ( If any one finds the term "sheltered American" insulting, realize at least that many in the world envy that dubious privilege.) In answer to her question, if I had to give up a child due to war, famine, extreme poverty,etc. I would be so thankful not to mention relieved that my child was loved and well cared for and did not die, I would have no problem over looking his or her adoptive parent's lack of talent for creative prose, or even their sense of undeserved entitlement. But that's just me. (By the way, bio parents with insight, do not feel entitled to their bio children either.)

Human love is by nature possessive. I claim my child, my child claims me, that's called attachment. Children need to attach, it's part of normal development. How would an adopted child feel growing up if she thinks that her parents would willingly, with gladness reunite her with her bio parents should they happen to show up on the front door? Only God is capable of the true unconditional love that is perfectly pure. The rest of us can only love in a way that God approves, allow God to guide us in our choices and trust in his timing. To think otherwise is hubris.

Her perspective about female Asian stereotypes is also very much that of an American woman (of whatever ethnicity) rather than that of an Asian. Ironically, it's the fact that she is so very American (and nothing wrong with that, by the way) that she sees it as a racial issue. I have no doubt that everything she described happened. However, if I were to be in those situations, it's the perversity that would offend me, not the fact that these people view me as Asian. Chinese is what I am, whoever that chooses to look at me. As an Asian women who grew up with a world filled with other Asian women of all ages, shape and sizes, ugly and beautiful but mostly just plain, the concept of all Asian woman as sexual beings is just too preposterous to be entertained even under duress. Bad men sexualize women, their hatred is universal. They would not treat white women or even their own wives or daughters any better. It puzzles me that anyone should find sexual perverts' opinion on women of any significance. I don't seek opinion on children from pedophiles. Of course these people are also racist. They are the same group that robs the poor and beats the elderly. They exist in all countries. Unfortunately certain percentage of the human population suffers from this particular form of "congenital defect", and are truly "learning disabled". One simply stay away from places where these people are likely to hang out (in the real world and on the internet) because these places are bad places for many other reasons. No energy left to comment on the sisterly comments she received. Maybe they view her as a threat because she is attractive, again it's not that she is Asian. I am starting to feel a little bad about myself. I don't seem to have her problem...I guess I am that ugly.

A lot of her complaints are also complaints of second or third generation Asians, they are only relevant to her adoption in the sense that had she not been adopted, she would have grown up in Korea. These are not issues caused by adoption. These are issues of immigration, and she is an immigrant though she is not likely to view herself as such. Other children don't get to choose if their family immigrate or not either, their parents make that decision for them, just like hers.

It's getting late, so I'll cut it short. If you get nothing else from this blog, please just remember that Google search is not a research tool (if one needs an example of something that is not meant to be... )It's the definition of selection bias by design. Besides, pornography is the number one use (or at least one of the top uses) of the Internet. Try to Google white women in an Asian country and see what happens. This is just a pet peeve about one of the failures of our liberal arts education.

Adoptive parents vs Biologic Parents

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you

Question: How are adoptive parents (who may also have biologic children) different from biologic parents?

My own humble answer: They are parents who have asked of God, knowingly or not, and a door was open unto them for their needs.

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Repaired Special Needs

Preface: I am Taiwanese, brought up to be more than a little leery of the Chinese communist government. In fact, that's the main reason my family immigrated to the US.

RQ posted that China is referring "repaired special needs" children as non special needs "again". Apparently it was an issue last year then sort of died down. I wonder if it's not a little like the Chew blog situation where a disturbing situation (disrupted adoption) gets discussed a lot when it happens then dies down because the incidence is pretty low and unchanged in reality. On the other hand, it could be that with improved medical care in China there are more children who get treated for correctable conditions and are now available for adoption and the CCAA is doing its best to find homes for these kids. Or, as quite a few claimed, China is trying to slide unhealthy children into families that requested healthy kids. Words such as trickery, deception, and corruption were used.

An understandably heated discussion followed, mostly centered around the rights of PAP to have choices and be informed about the referrals of "corrected special needs" children. Almost all admit to being concerned, many are angry, some more blunt about their anger than others. The whole spectrum of attitudes ranged from the sanctimonious"how can anyone not love any child and want to parent them", to the frightening "I paid more for non special need babies and am entitled to one". Waiting parents are a little to a lot worried, including me.

In so much as China has changed and is changing, so must it's international adoption program, including the types and numbers of Chinese children it deems appropriate for international adoption. That's a given. Has the integrity of the program deteriorated as changes occur is a more fundamental question. Related to that questions is, why do the waiting adoptive parents find China or more specifically the CCAA deceitful for placing children with corrected special needs as non special needs?

One must accept when adopting that no system can be 100% correct in accessing the medical condition of a child. A certain percentage of non special need referrals will have "special needs" or medical problems. Vice versa, a certain percentage of "special needs" are not really special needs at all. It seems logical also that the population of "corrected special need" children may have a higher incidence of permanent medical problems than the traditional non special need population. It follows that if the CCAA does its best to assess the condition of the children being referred, and choose to define non permanent corrected medical condition as non special need, they can not and should not be faulted. Let's not forget that China did not solicit the world, and the United States in particular to adopt their children. We went knocking on their door, and lately, the waiting crowd is wanting to knock down the door, grab the babies and run. China never advertised its international adoption program as the predictable, ethical, efficient, low risk program that beats all others. That is a conclusion drawn by the adoptive parents themselves. The adoption agencies described the program as such, and they were correct, at least in the recent past. If the character and nature of China's international adoption program is changing, it's for the PAPs and the agencies to find out for themselves and communicate that to one another.

On a more cynical level, for those who find China or the CCAA manipulative, arbitrary, and unresponsive to the people/children it serves, which part of "a communist government" do you not understand? Let me spell it out for you, IT IS NOT A DEMOCRACY, and you are not even one of it's citizens. What kind of rights and political representation do you think you are entitled to?

I am just as worried as any waiting parent, if not more so given my personality. I am just as selfish in wanting healthy, happy children. Those who know me know that I am easily stressed. My motto in life is: the solution to problems is not to create problems. I do sometimes wonder if I am tempting fate to adopt again when I already have three literally gorgeous, healthy as can be, and smart babies. But, for what ever reason, I/we, were driven to want another. So I am committed, and my heart already engaged. Even though I can't predict the future, I know that when my child is here, I do not want to have written, or have thought anything that she might find hurtful. I am her mother. Perhaps that should serve as an internal yardstick for PAPs dueling it out on adoption forums. What would my child think, how would my child feel, if he or she ever chance upon these discussions?

Up a Notch Racism

I do not like the Rumor Queen. I do not like the site. However, I visit and read the posts and discussions. I need the information and for now the China Adopt Talk site is where people go to share information regarding China adoption. It bothers me that I have to visit that site to get information, but so be it. Why do I read the discussions? I sometimes wonder.

I checked out some of the blogs that were referenced on the Rumor Queen forum regarding "racism". They are mostly blogs by trans- racial adoptees. They experience and describe a peculiar form of racism that results form having internalized the persona of the "superior race"growing up, but are then regarded by the rest of the world as NOT of the "superior race". By definition, what ever amount of racism these individuals experience, it has to be more than what their parents/families experience (which is none), because their parents are of the "superior race" themselves. That is distinctively different from the typical immigrant experience where the second generation tend to be better assimilated and experience less "racist moments" than their parents and are constantly reminded by their parents how lucky they are to be able to grow up in America. After reading these blogs, it is understandable that the white adoptive parents worry about the racial discriminations that their children are likely to face yet that themselves have no experience with. How can they help their children? Unfortunately, how some of these trans-racial adoptive parents (the Rumor Queen type) address that concern is often offensive and racist in the extreme. Why they need to claim superiority on a problem (racial discrimination) that's better left unexperienced and of which they lack any perspective on is really kind of strange.There is no pride in being discriminated against, really, I kid you not.

For starters, It's all about Them. (A pretty universal complaint regarding racism from all parties involved.) They are concerned about racism toward female Asian Americans only because they have adoptive children from China (or substitute Asian country of your choice). They don't care "sh*t" about Asians Americans or any other racial minorities for that matter. They may pretend they do, and sometimes they pretend so hard they convince themselves but nobody else. The "other minorities" exist to serve as examples for them to make a point. It's always if a black person this or if a black person that. Personally, if I were black, I would get pretty p*ssed at being the "gold standard" for other minorities. Why don't they use themselves as examples? After all, white Americans have many negative stereotypes of their own, and in case they haven't noticed, they are not the majority or superior race where their daughters came from. What infuriates me the most is how readily they gang up to stump on any Asian that gets in their way to eradicate racism for their daughters, even when they are wrong (spoken from personal experience by the way). They can't seem to grasp that not everything that distinguish a person as Chinese is bad, not every un-American trait is a negative stereotype, and not everybody wants to be "colorless".

They are pretty brutal with fellow white citizens who have not immersed themselves in the trans-racial adoptive culture as well. Why can't people just educate themselves for my family's sake is sort of the attitude. Why can't people treat us just like everyone else but behave with impeccable sensitivity around my children because they are not white and are obviously adopted? Really one does feel sorry for the children. But the self-righteousness of the parents is not justified. If they really care that much about "The Children", then don't adopt them, just donate the money so they can stay with their biologic family or at least lead a good life in their own country. The amount of money spent on these children on a daily basis in America will more than compensate for permanent foster families who may even be the children's biologic extended families. If , like us, you adopt because of your own selfish needs to love and beloved, internationally because of its relative ease compared to domestic adoption, at least have the tolerance to put up with the imperfect world as you suffer it because you created it yourself. Occasionally, one also hear from trans racial adoptive parents who adopt as a part of their efforts to combat racism, prevent population growth, or avoid childbirth...and China because they have always been drawn to it ever since they were little girls (growing up in Kansas?). That would be during the cultural revolution when China was CLOSED to the world and its own past! What were they being drawn by?

These white adoptive parents insist that because they have researched and read all about racism toward female Asian Americans, they understand it better than the oblivious Asian American women themselves. Yes, they claim to feel my pain more than me, and they are also entitled to tell me what I should and should not find offensive or discriminatory!? The presumption and arrogance of these white women are mind boggling to someone who has never had the privilege to be of the "superior race".

Striking are these women's obvious resentments toward Asian American women who refuse to subscribe to the white agenda. They have no problems with Asians whom they regard as foreign. Chopsticks, Chinese food, Chinese folklore are all to be embraced and respected for their foreignness. They are all too willing to take on the White Men's or Women's burden. They just can't stomach Chinese Americans who don't share their feelings but are just as American as they are. They are worse than people who harbor racism based on ignorance, or are just ignorant period. These are intelligent and articulate people with influence who exercise the White Person's prerogative when they are threatened by others who are different but equally powerful. I do realize that the "all must think and feel just like me and nothing I say, think, or do can be wrong" is a personality disorder that exist in all races, not just people "without color". But when these people happen to be white and decide to combat racism, they have just taken racism to the next level, a much more subversive and dangerous realm. Now imaging little Chinese girls growing up calling these people mommy. They may love you, but they really wish deep down that you are "colorless". Nevertheless, they love you despite all that because they are such wonderful colorblind human beings...and when you run in to other Chinese women, just assume that they don't know anything about China, being Chinese or Chinese American, certainly not as much as your mommy who puts you in Chinese school and has the money to take you (back?) to China for heritage tours every year. Many Chinese immigrants have to save up for years to go back home you know, so how can they understand China like my family? Besides Chinese people in America don't seem to like me very much, wonder why?

Failing to acknowledge that they are indeed privilege to be white in America, lacking the humbleness to admit that they can not always understand other people's sufferings make them think that they are so special that their children should be exempted from the price of immigration that every immigrant and their children have to pay. Loss of culture, loss of biologic extended family, loss of the certainty of belonging are not unique to their children but are the accepted price immigrants, their children, and their children's children all pay...mitigated only when they become equal parts of the American society, when their race is no longer viewed as a liability, dissolved though not necessarily resolved when completely assimilated and intermarried. So what motivates the Rumor Queen and her likes to reinforce to an Asian woman that being Asian is and always will be a liability in America even when that Asian woman argued (uncharacteristically) with them that need not be so? Pure, simple, unadulterated racial superiority?

Why I read the Rumor Queen? Because it allows me to better understand how racism really manifests itself in America. They have convinced me that racism is rampant in America and infiltrates into every aspects of our lives.

I-171!

NOTICE OF FAVORABLE DETERMINATION CONCERNING APPLICATION FOR ADVANCE PROCESSING OF ORPHAN PETITION

We received our I-171 today! This is a major milestone for international adoption. It means that the US government has given us permission to adopt a child from China.

I Fedex'ed the document to Hand in Hand within the hour of getting it out of our mailbox so they will have it by tomorrow morning. Now all we need to do is to certify and authenticate our dossier then we can submit our dossier to China. The real wait begins when we get a log in date from the CCAA.

Blogs and More..

I haven't posted in while, but it's not because I have lost interest in blogging. Far from it, in fact, I was busy checking out all the different blogging services and testing them out (while neglecting my children). It did not take long for me to decide that Wordpress is too user unfriendly for me. Took me a while to decide on Type Pad. I liked the increased options and flexibility, but really was not thrill to have to pay for it. Plus, it's not integrated with google's Picasa which I use. Fortunately, Apple announced the arrival of iLife 08 with much improved iPhoto and .mac. The new features will allow me to easily create a more complete website. I am waiting for my order from Apple to arrive to start on my project. I think I'll have a different page for each of my kids, a web gallery and a link to my blogger blog.

I am not too unhappy about the new iMac release, even though I just bought mine a few month ago. I really like the previous all white design and find the new metallic look too "cold". No real big changes in hardware other than the expected improvement with advancing time. I wish they come out with Leopard already! I want to do a clean install and really don't want to have to move too much data around. I really like computers.

Auguest Referrals

Referrals arrived today for LID (logged in date) 11/8-11/21 /05(maybe a lucky 11/22?) families. For the expedited due to Chinese heritage group, the June 2006 families have received referrals. A CERG (Yahoo group for expedited due to Chinese heritage) family who should be expedited is anxious because they have not gotten theirs. Will have to wait to see what the glitch is.

With each batch of referrals, the slow down gets worse because only part of a month gets matched each month. It will take at least 4 months to get through November 2005 for the regular group, though there are hopes that things may speed up a bit after November, it being a "big"month. For the expedited group, the CCAA seems to refer either half of a month at a time or a whole month every other month. I think they just sort of eyeball the pile and try to keep the expedited group about 6 months ahead of the regular group. I was hoping that they would expedite base on rate of referral rather than a fixed interval, but they don't seem to be doing that.

What that means for us is uncertain since we are so early in the process we are not even logged in yet. If the current rate of referral does not speed up, then people who are just paperchasing now would not get a referral for 10 years! That's essentially saying that the adoption will not happen. Though there are rumors, the CCAA has stated recently that they are not planning to shut down the IA program. One can only assume that they have a way to speed things back up so the referral time remains reasonable (reasonable being 3 years for now).

Dramatic speed up is expected after the May 2007 group has been processed because of the rule change, but there are still 18 months of backlog (or 4.5-6 years at the current rate!) until then. For the expedited group the back log is 11 months until May 2007, so 22 months. (Though again, the CCAA seems to want to keep the difference between the 2 groups at a consistent 6 month. They sometimes skip several months of the expedited group...) I am not counting the months after May because it is possible that the number of applicants can drop so much after May 2007 that families receive a referral as soon as they pass review (not likely, but just to simplify my calculation). That can be approximately 5 years from now. I suppose I am still young enough for a baby 5 years from now, do not think 10 years would be possible though. The lady that runs Hand in Hand in Albion will probably have retired by then!

Many are hoping for a significant change in the rate of referral after next year's Olympic. The hypothesis being that the slow down was done to avoid the potential negative image of China being viewed as the "great baby exporter" while the reporters roam around Beijing looking for stories. I can sort of see that happening, we won't know until next year this time though. I won't comment if that's right or wrong, good or bad, international adoption is a very complex issue in and of itself. Obviously, the Chinese and the adoptive parents are coming from two very different perspectives and I am both Chinese (well, Taiwanese anyways) and an adoptive parent.

The CCAA maintains that the slow down is due to simple supply and demand, i.e. a dramatic increase in the number of adoptive parents and decrease in the number of babies abandoned, coupled with increase in domestic adoption. Other issues mentioned in the China adoption community include the change in how orphanage donation (fees) from international adoption are now distributed across the province rather than just to the particular SWI (social welfare institutes) involved, therefore decreasing the motivation and/or the resources that SWI's have to make their babies paper ready for international adoption. Orphanages (SWI's) are now increasing their fees, after 15 years. Regardless of whether or not things will speed up, I think the fee increase is more than reasonable. The USCIS increased the I-600A fee to a total of $730 from $685, the certificate of citizenship fee is also to be increased...etc. Things are just more expensive in China now, as it is in the US, compared to 15 years ago. I think there are some uneasiness that allowing orphanages to charge their own fee can lead to corruption and even some form of baby trafficking. I am hoping that the CCAA will issue guidelines for the SWI's to charge what they need based on the local situation but avoid the scandals of corruption to taint what has been a "model program" for international adoption.

For now, I will be thrilled to see our I-171H before 8/11/07, and hopefully get logged in by September.