[JustBarbara]

Jumping over from the Guatemalan board but ... how likely is it that someone could have adopted and brought home a 9-month-old orphan from China - last month? The aparent is making a point of saying she was an orphan but it seems wild/crazy/unlikely to me given all the timelines I see (and from some friends how are in the process to adopt from China) - but the baby is here in the U.S. I don't believe the baby is special needs. Any thoughts?

[mom3boys]

It does happen that children are referred at young ages. I have seen them as young as five months at referral. Those kiddos would come home about two to three months later. You didn't mention when this aparent put in her paperwork. If her file was sent to China in February of 06 then it is very possible that this is true. If her file went any later than that then either the child has some sort of SN or you are getting the story wrong. It has, however, happened that people have received NSN referrals before their LID group, but it is very rare and not discussed much. Recently there was a report of a group in Italy that received early referrals.
I hope that helps.

[JustBarbara]

Oh thanks - this makes me feel a lot better. I've no idea about the details but it did strike me as very unusual that there would be such young children coming from China at this time. Thanks again

[KarenInCa]

I've never seen historical trends on ages. When we adopted our first daughter, we specifically asked for a child 14-24 months old at referral. We were referred a 14 month old (16 months when we got her). At that time, there was no talk about times going up, and most everyone for that few months got an older toddler somewhere close to our daughter's age. A few months later, and for a long time, while waits were going up, and it seemed that most children being referred were closer to 9 months. This made no sense to me, because if there were less babies....where were the toddlers? And why were there more younger children being referred then? I have always been puzzled about that, especially since there were very young babies when my daughter was adopted, and as time went by, those babies turned in to older toddlers (16 month olds or so), but at that time there were mostly babies (7-10 month olds) being referred.
Age of the child really has nothing to do with much of this.
If a child is abandoned, they have to wait 6 months to make the abandonment official. But even that is not a given. Our daughter was abandoned at 4 days old. Her referral pictures were taken when she was appx 10 months old, and she was matched with us at 14 months old. She was technically able to be matched at 6 months old. And her referral pictures were with CCAA for a good 4 months, just sitting and waiting.
It seems age ranges come in waves......a few months of very very young babies and a few months of 10-14 month olds, but I don't think it's related to less paper ready children as much as it seems it should be.

[KarenInCa]

Also, APs can be waiting 3 or 4 years, but the match does not happen till directly before they are going to know about it, so technically, someone can be in the process of waiting 2-3 years, before the baby is even born.

[prechrswife]

Our daughter came home in Sept. 2006. She was 7 months at referral, just shy of 9 months at Gotcha, and 9 months when we came home. All of the 8 babies in our travel group were between 8 and 10 months when we came home. It really isn't that unusual.

[sak9645]

It certainly can happen. The average age at referral is more like 10-12 months, but children have been referred as young as six months.

Unlike with Guatemala, you don't get a referral until everyone in line before you has one. The waits you are hearing about reflect the length of time from dossier submission to referral. So you may wait three years, once your dossier is submitted to the China Center for Adoption Affairs, until you reach the head of the line, since there are a lot of families in line and relatively few babies available.

At that point, you are matched with a child from the next available orphanage group of children, and if there happens to be a very young baby in that group, you may be matched with him/her. You then await travel authorization, but that takes only about six weeks. Once you have the authorization, you may travel immediately.

You go first to your child's province, where you meet your child, finalize the adoption, and then wait about a week for the paperwork to be prepared. You then travel to Guangzhou, have your child's visa medical done at a Consulate-approved clinic, and apply for your child's visa. If your paperwork is in order, you pick up the visa the next day and can leave for home immediately. So the trip takes only about 10-14 days, in most cases.

In short, the time from referral to homecoming is only about 8-10 weeks. So even if a child was referred at 6-7 months of age, it is possible for him/her to come home at 9 months of age.

Sharon