The latest travel approvals (TA's) came in last week, and the Roll Call at the WCC list was updated accordingly. I ran the latest statistics on the wait for TA. Here's a graph with the number of days waited on the x axis, and the number of families falling into a particular wait time on the y axis. Again, this only includes families in our situation (dossier sent to China after the letter of intent). (Click on the graph to enlarge)




The average wait time is up to 82 days, with a standard deviation of about three weeks on either side. You are most likely to get TA within one standard deviation of the mean (in other words, within 3 weeks on either side of the average wait). I so wish that the standard deviation was smaller - it would be nice to have a tighter estimate, rather than the 6-week window of highest probability.


Here's further breakdown of the numbers, along with TA estimates based upon our own LID:

7% of families received their TA in less than 60 days after their log-in date (for us, that would be before Jan 12)
16% < 65 days (before Jan. 17th)
23% < 70 days (before Jan. 22nd)
37% < 75 days (before Jan. 27th)
51% < 80 days (before Feb. 1st)
71% < 85 days (before Feb. 6th)
76% < 90 days (before Feb. 11th)
80% < 95 days (before Feb. 16th)
87% < 100 days (before Feb. 21st)
90% < 105 days (before Feb. 26th)

Less than 10% of the families had to wait more than 110 days for their TA. Looking at the graph, it still seems most likely that we'll receive our TA sometime between February 1st and February 6th.

Still, there are those families that seem to have to wait a really long time. I plotted LID against TA on a scatterplot to look at this relationship. The diagonal line represents the average wait time. The closer a given point is to the line, the closer a particular family is to waiting the average amount of time. If a dot is above the line, the wait was longer than average, if below the line, it was shorter than average. (Click on graph to enlarge)




You can see that when it's been a while between TA's coming out of the CCAA, that there's more catch-up, and there are more points above the line. (For instance, there wasn't much coming out during October of this year, so November had more of the earlier LID's included). Still, it's encouraging to see the clusters around the average time; waiting longer seems to be fairly uncommon.

I wouldn't mind waiting until March to travel; it's certainly what would work best for our family schedule. On the other hand, it would be wonderful to have Eleanor join our family ASAP! Guess we'll see!

Here are some earlier pictures of Eleanor Zitao, courtesy of other families sending them to us and/or posting them with their travel photo albums of Hefei CWI! We are so glad other families have taken photos of our daughter while in Hefei, and hope to do the same for other families who are in the "wait stage" when we travel!

From August of 2005:



From January of 2006 (or so...):





From March of 2006:

We just heard from our agency - we are pre-approved to bring our daughter home! YAAY! And we have a log-in date for our dossier, too!

LID: 11/13/2006
PA: 11/14/2006

Our LID was 4 days sooner than my guesstimate from my last post!

Wow, it feels so good to know we're just down to the wait for travel approval now! China has blessed our match, and Eleanor Zitao will come home soon!

So, I was getting a little frustrated with the lack of good statistical analysis on actual adoption timelines. Fortunately, one of the Yahoo groups I belong to does a "Roll Call" where waiting families provide data on their timelines. The sample size is actually fairly good, and I was able to analyze data for those who are exactly in our situation (our LOI was sent prior to our dossier going to China, and this data includes only those families who are in our same situation). The folks who collect the data on Yahoo create a spreadsheet, compute an average, a minimum and maximum, but just looking at numbers doesn't do much to give me an idea of what the data "looks like." So I ran it on SPSS. For those who don't know, "PA" (pre-approval) is essentially having your match blessed by the Chinese government - after that, your dossier paperwork is still reviewed, but China has already said that you look like good parents for this particular waiting child. We may not receive a PA, since our dossier went to China fairly quickly after our LOI (letter of intent), so we may skip directly to TA (travel approval), but a PA would be nice and reassuring for us to receive. Here is a summary of the statistics for the time from LOI being sent to receiving PA from the CCAA (Click on graph to enlarge):




The average LOI to PA wait time is 39 days, but the median is 35 days, which reflects a skewed data set. We are currently at day 44. (So - we're hoping we actually receive our PA this week!) Here's a graph of the data, which shows one really horrid outlier and how the majority of PA's are received BEFORE day 50. And it's really unlikely that we'll go beyond day 60. Knock on wood! (Click on graph to enlarge)




The data for DTC (Dossier to China) to LID (Log In Date) is a lot more unpredictable, and more normally distributed. Our DTC was November 7th, so it's been 12 days. Most of the variation is presumably due to agencies waiting to send dossiers in groups, or waiting for translation in China, or other factors that delay the actual arrival of the dossier at the CCAA. We are 99% sure that our dossier was walked into the CCAA on the 13th, since our agency told us that it was completely translated by the time it arrived in China, and that the 13th was the most likely day that it would be delivered. So, even if the dossier sat on someone's desk for a week (I hope not - but it could, or even longer, for that matter), I'm hoping our LID ends up being around the 17th. That would put our wait for LID at only 10 days, which may be optimistic given the average of 18 days. (Yes, I realize the 17th has come and gone, but you don't find out when your LID actually was until well after the fact - we may not know until December about our November LID). Here's the data (click on graph to enlarge):




And finally - one of the more important things to consider - when the heck are we traveling to bring home our beautiful girl? Well, the data on this is fortunately pretty tightly distributed (click on graph to enlarge).





The average wait time from LID to TA (Travel Approval) is 78 days, and the median value is 76 days. The standard deviation is about 18 days, so it's pretty likely that we'll end up receiving our TA within 2.5 weeks of the average wait time. Of course, the data IS skewed towards the earlier end, so we may end up having a TA that's a bit earlier than average, but I'll build in some pessimism and keep Murphy's law in mind. Here's the histogram (click on graph to enlarge):





Let's say our LID ends up being November 17th, and we wait an average amount of time for our TA. That would make our TA date approximately the 3rd of February. We would leave about for China 1-4 weeks after that, depending on when our Consulate Appointment is scheduled.

Here comes the kicker, though - Chinese New Year (we will NOT be traveling DURING that time) is the week of February 18th next year. The Chinese take the week as a holiday, and it would not work to try to get an adoption done while everybody's off work and partying. So, if we travel in February, we'll have to get our two-week trip in before the 18th. If we don't travel before then, we'll have to wait until the holiday is over, and would be traveling in the first part of March. The University of Colorado's spring break is the week of March 25th... and while I'd rather not wait until mid-March to travel, if we traveled for two weeks and then had a week to recover, I wouldn't complain. (And we'd probably get better airfares with more notice).

So there's my nerdy post for the day, and my predictions for the weeks and months to come!

My sister, Meg, and her family were visiting this week, which was wonderful. We don't get to see them very often, since they live in Oregon and neither of us has a lot of time or money for travel. We took a trip up to Estes Park (just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park), and went inside a glassblowers shop there. I found a glass dragon in the Asian style, with swirls of color on the wings. I bought it for my dragon-girl, Eleanor Zitao, and will be hanging it on our Christmas tree this year.

I'm finding it hard to know that I won't have her home for the holidays this year. Our Heritage Adoption Services representative is taking a tour of China during December, and has kindly offered to bring Eleanor Zitao a package for us (shipping is expensive to China)! Logically, I know that we don't really have that long to wait. It just feels that way. I'm trying to concentrate on how lucky we are to be bringing her home at all.

My other sister, Beth, gave birth to her fourth child yesterday evening. Little Tyler arrived two weeks early, has lovely dimples, and weighed in at 8 pounds 6 ounces. It took only an hour of labor to bring him into the world. While I never miss the discomfort of pregnancy (I was really in a lot of pain with my last one), I do miss the security of having my baby tucked safely away inside of me. I miss the exclusivity of knowing I'm the only mother, the only one providing motherly love. I realize that is selfish.

I heard from a family who had received a referral for Zitao early this year, but had to turn it down due to issues at home that conflicted with an adoption at that time. They are relieved that Zitao will have a family, and wish us well, which was very good to hear. They sent us some additional (older) pictures of Zitao, which were a precious gift. So far attempts to get updated pictures via other visiting families have been foiled by Eleanor Zitao being in school (which is a good place to be, but not so good when you want to take her picture during the day)!

This past weekend, I painted the foyer, halls, part of the family room and the stairs, and replaced the light fixtures in the foyer and upstairs hallway. Why? Mostly to have a project, to feel productive. The carpets are being cleaned on Monday, to add to the freshening up. I have to keep busy somehow while I'm out of class over the holiday. Spending too much time thinking about my little girl will just make me crazy.

Eleanor means bright, or light. Like sunshine, or candles, or Christmas lights. Like her.

So, David and I headed down to CCAI at 7:15 a.m. on a Saturday last week, so we could make it there by 8:30 for the start of parent training. Grandma Jean was in town, which made it an ideal time to go (yay for built-in babysitting!). (On a side note, Grandma Jean interviewed at CU on Monday, and we're all keeping our fingers, toes, and eyes crossed hoping she'll get the job and become a permanent local resident!)

Anyway, I was admittedly very skeptical about parent training. I realize that people who say, "I don't need no stinkin' training" are EXACTLY the ones who need it the most. But I also have to say that I'm already the type of person who grabs hold of every tidbit of information about a particular topic once it becomes important to me, and creates a library of resources and information to use. For instance *I* was the one providing our social worker with resources on older child adoption (pulling out books to show her, alerting her to web resources, etc.). I also tend to be skeptical of parenting advice period, when all the bookish advice in the world goes to hell in a handbasket once you realize that your child is an individual and really doesn't care what the expert author said about what her behavior should be.

Well, we went (we had to), and it was fine. Not good, not bad, just fine. It would have been better with some novel information, but I think it was good to hear the same stuff again, and it was good for Dave to hear it from someone besides me. The best part was chuckling knowingly about the advice on giving children choices, which is something we use with Genevieve all the time. For example, some commonly used ones around here are:

"Do you want to go to bed right away, or do you want me to read you a story first?"
"Do you want to hold my hand, or do you want me to carry you?"
"Do you want to take a bath now or after dinner?"
"Do you want to clean up your bedroom or the family room first?"
"Do you want a red hair band or a blue hair band?"

With Sarah, we can just tell her to go to bed, to take a bath, or to clean up. It works 99% of the time. Gennie's a bit more, um, independent about that sort of thing. Of course, she's also bright, and realizes that there are other choices we don't mention, like having a tantrum, or ignoring us, or running away giggling. She is also starting to realize that we choose for her if she doesn't make her own choice, and that is gradually helping to make her three-year-old behavior managable. (Aging out of toddlerhood is also helping!)

CCAI was also having a sale in the gift shop downstairs. So much eye candy, and so tempting to bring the whole store home! And I got to chat about Mandarin with the presenter on Chinese culture, which was fun. (I'm not quite proficient enough to chat IN Mandarin, but I'm getting there!) I also liked people-watching.

Just a few more early morning Saturdays. We'll survive.

DTC today! Heritage received our dossier via FedEx, let us know that it looked great, they added the finishing touches to the presentation and it's on its way to China via DHL! (In less than a business day, too! Wow!)

Our dossier will be translated from a faxed version while the original is in transit, and then the translated dossier will be delivered to the CCAA.

We await a Log-In Date. I feel so much better now, knowing that I've done everything I could possibly do to make things go smoothly and quickly. Papers did not stay on my desk any longer than was absolutely necessary, usually no more than a few hours; I always tried to send things off as soon as I possibly could (and acted as my own courier to the Secretary of State a few times, too!). It's really paid off, because we have gone from an approved application to DTC in less than 3 months (87 days, actually - but who's counting?). Having a copy machine at home and a FedEx account has been the key! Zitao has waited more than 6 years for her family. She shouldn't have to wait a single minute longer than is necessary now that we have found her. We've done all we can do; now it's up to the China Center for Adoption Affairs.

We're coming, sweetie!

OUR DOSSIER IS DONE! We sent it to Heritage Adoption Services via FedEx today!!

It will be reviewed by the Heritage staff, faxed to staffpeople in Beijing so it can be translated while the original dossier is in transit to China, and then the translated dossier will be delivered to the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA). The CCAA already received our Letter of Intent (LOI) for Zitao, and once they have a chance to review our dossier, we'll receive our Travel Approval (TA)! Current average wait time from dossier Log-In Date (LID) to TA is around 80 days for the waiting child program.

Once that TA is received, we'll be on a plane within 1-6 weeks (depending on when our Consulate Appointment in Guangzhou is scheduled) to bring our daughter HOME!!

That's all the alphabet soup for the day - I have to say that it really helps to be OCD when you're trying to get your DTC!

I was visiting another family's travel blog recently, and they had posted this video of the children at Hefei CWI. It was taken by another family visiting the orphanage earlier this year.

Zitao doesn't seem to be in this video (although... there IS a little girl in a pink dress that looks suspiciously like the one she wears in one of her pictures - she's in the background and it's impossible to tell for sure). I still really enjoyed seeing the other children. While an orphanage is not a home, this orphanage seems to be very nice as orphanages go.

Click here: Hefei CWI 2006

We also received a pleasant note from Kathy Wang, in Beijing, who informed us that the letters we sent in our care package have been translated, and that it is now on its way directly to Zitao. Yay!