Timing

Referral Day arrived a little later than we had originally planned and hoped, or a lot later, depending on how you count.

When we first started this whole process, adoptions from Taiwan were happening MUCH more quickly than they are now. Way back in early 2006, if you got your paperwork in, you could expect to get your referral in 2-3 months(!) and you could plan to travel 3-5 months after that. That was potentially less than nine months from start to finish. Yikes!!

By the time we got our paperwork in back in October, the expected wait time to referral had extended to 5-6 months, with an emphasis on six months. For those of you adept at advanced math, you can see that our referral wait time was a little over six months. Adoption time line math is always a little fuzzy since it's not always clear when you're officially on the wait list, but six plus months is in the ball park.

We feel fortunate. Those that are entering the pipeline now are being told they might wait as much as a year to receive their referral. That sounds long to us, but not to those considering China where wait times are now close to 2.5 years!