Goodbye 2006, Hello 2007...

This post will be short, as soon I must turn my attention to the fascinating event of "watching the ball drop" on TV. Wow wee. Good thing I am dressed in my purple flannel dog PJs for this event. I also seem to have developed a cold in the last two hours.

Anyway, I digress. Tonight Tim and I ate at a very good restaurant called Caffe Bella. Because 2007 is going to be our year, the year of Bella!

And there's more where that came from...

Also from the New York Times:

December 24, 2006
In an Adoption Hub, China’s New Rules Stir Dismay
By ANDY NEWMAN and REBECCA CATHCART
The news last week that China was putting sharp restrictions on foreign adoptions landed harder on the Upper West Side than just about anywhere else.

The neighborhood has the nation’s highest concentration of adopted Chinese children, according to the group Families With Children From China. A bicultural social network has developed there that offers everything from ethnic-heritage training to Mandarin-speaking nannies to mother-daughter dumpling-cooking classes.

Now, some of the same demographic factors that made the Upper West Side an adoption capital — a tendency for women to want a career first and children later; an abundance of single people who can afford to support a child without a mate; a large gay and lesbian community — are considered deal breakers by the Chinese government.

The rules, which take effect in May, require an adopting family to be composed of a man and woman between 30 and 50 years old who have been married at least two years (or five years if it is a second marriage). They cannot be obese or have a net worth less than $80,000. And anyone on an antidepressant or other psychiatric medication is out, a rule sure to raise anxiety levels in a neighborhood where seeing a therapist is considered unremarkable.

All of which has many people racing to complete the lengthy process of filling their application dossiers before the rules change.

“I’ve been totally overwhelmed,” said a 48-year-old single businesswoman who declined to give her name, citing privacy concerns. Within a few months, she needs to pass city, state and F.B.I. criminal checks; take classes and receive visits from social workers; and complete medical and financial screenings, among other things.

The woman, who lives on the Upper West Side, adopted a year-old Chinese girl last year and had wanted to wait a while before deciding whether to adopt again, but she said she felt that her hand was being forced. “Even if I got married tomorrow,” she said, “the two-year waiting period would freeze me out.”

Beth Mintz Friedberg, associate director of international adoptions at Spence-Chapin, one of the city’s leading agencies for adoptions from China, said she had fielded many panicked calls and e-mail messages since the rules were announced.

“I was just on the phone with a woman who has other options, but even so it was very hard for her to let go of this fantasy that there was this little girl in China who was going to be her daughter,” Ms. Friedberg said.

She added that anyone who would not qualify under the new rules and had not already started the application process had little chance of finishing in time.

China, long the world’s leading source of children for foreign adoptions, says it is enacting the rules because it is inundated with requests. Waiting times for adopting a Chinese child have increased to as much as two years.

Gongzhan Wu, director of the New York office and China program manager at the Gladney Center for Adoption, said that his agency was recommending that prospective families consider Vietnam, which has fewer restrictions.

Nearly 8,000 children from China were granted orphan visas last year, accounting for more than 30 percent of all foreign adoptions in the United States, according to federal statistics.

About one-fifth of the Chinese adopted children in the country live in New York, said Families With Children From China, a support group founded on the Upper West Side in 1993 that now has chapters all over the United States.

The new rules seem to have prompted widespread discomfort among New Yorkers who have already adopted from China.

“Those of us who are parents but would not qualify under the new rules are at a loss for how we would explain this in five years,” said Jennifer Maslowski, the Manhattan coordinator of Families With Children From China of Greater New York. “ ‘Nowadays Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t be good enough to adopt you.’ ”

Ms. Maslowski lamented that a group that had embraced diversity by seeking children outside their ethnic groups was itself about to become more uniform.

“It’s going to change our community into something we don’t want it to be,” she said. “It’s going to change it into all of the families being more or less the same.”

Many parents dismissed the Chinese government’s explanation that not enough orphans were available to meet the demand, noting that Western researchers have conservatively estimated the population of Chinese social welfare institutions at over a million children. The vast majority are girls, many of them given up because of the government’s one-child policy.

“While I may not be considered an ideal person,” said Marcia Hochman, 50, a social worker who was 45 when she adopted her daughter, “the alternative for that child is to grow up in a state-run orphanage in China.”

Robin Reif, a single adoptive mother of a 5-year-old Chinese girl, said she remained deeply grateful to the Chinese government. “My perspective is that I was the beneficiary of the parameters they set,” said Ms. Reif, a marketing agency executive who lives on the Upper West Side and would not give her age.

She thought for a moment and added, “Were I in line now, though, I’m sure I’d be grievously disappointed.”

The New Regs: Much Ado about Something

From the New York Times:

December 20, 2006
China Tightens Adoption Rules for Foreigners
By PAM BELLUCK and JIM YARDLEY
Corrections Appended

China plans to tighten rules on foreign adoptions, barring people who are single, obese, older than 50 or who fail to meet certain benchmarks in financial, physical or psychological health from adopting Chinese children, according to adoption agencies in the United States.

The restrictions are in response to an enormous spike in applications by foreigners, which has far exceeded the number of available babies, said leaders of American adoption agencies who were briefed by Chinese officials earlier this month.

The new regulations, which have not yet been formally announced by the government-run China Center of Adoption Affairs, or C.C.A.A., are expected to take effect on May 1, 2007, and have raised concern and anxiety among prospective adoptive parents in this country.

China has in recent years been the No. 1 source of foreign-born children adopted by Americans — in the fiscal year 2006, the State Department granted 6,493 visas to Chinese orphans — and its regulations on who can adopt have been less restrictive than those in some other countries, adoption agencies said.

Now, however, the agencies said, the Chinese government has formulated guidelines intended to recruit adoptive families with qualities that Chinese officials believe will provide the greatest chance that children will be raised by healthy, economically stable parents.

“They need somehow to cut down on the number of families that are submitting” adoption requests, said Jackie Harrah, executive director of Harrah’s Adoption International Mission in Spring, Tex.

“Their feeling is that while singles can be good parents,” Ms. Harrah said, “it is better for a child to be raised in a two-parent family, it’s better for a parent to be educated, it’s better for a parent not to be obese because they have a chance of living longer. What C.C.A.A. really wanted was the cream of the crop.”

Several agencies said they had been flooded with confused, anxious or disappointed calls and e-mail messages from people wanting to adopt or those going through the application process. Most of those who had already initiated adoption applications were told that if they got all their paperwork in by May 1, they were likely to be approved.

But international adoption agencies have already begun turning away applicants who did not meet the new criteria.

The guidelines include a requirement that applicants have a body-mass index of less than 40, no criminal record, a high school diploma and be free of certain health problems like AIDS and cancer. Couples must have been married for at least two years and have had no more than two divorces between them. If either spouse was previously divorced, the couple cannot apply until they have been married for at least five years.

In addition, adoptive parents must have a net worth of at least $80,000 and income of at least $10,000 per person in the household, including the prospective adoptive child.

Parents can be as old as 55 if adopting a child with special needs.

Timothy Sutfin, executive director of New Beginnings Family and Children’s Services, an international adoption agency in Mineola, N.Y., said the new guidelines put China in the middle of the spectrum of countries — not as restrictive as South Korea, but stricter than places like Guatemala or Vietnam.

Keith Wallace, the chief executive of Families Thru International Adoption, based in Evansville, Ind., said that adopting an American child could also be restrictive, with standards for the health, economic situation and marital status of the family.

Despite the new rules, adoption agencies said they did not believe that the numbers of Chinese children adopted by Americans would decrease. Since 1991, Americans have adopted 55,000 Chinese children. Adoptions cost about $15,000, according to agency Web sites.

Since one agency, Great Wall China Adoption in Austin, Tex., posted the new rules on its Web site last week, “we’ve had about 400 e-mails and phone calls a day,” said Heather Terry, director of regional offices for the agency. “Some families were just turned down today. One was a couple where the husband had social anxiety disorder and takes Zoloft,” a violation of the new guidelines that bar people who are taking medication for anxiety or depression.

One person who is disqualified is Tony Velong of Temple Terrace, Fla. Mr. Velong and his wife, Tracey, had previously adopted two girls from China and were considering applying for a third. But they are too old: he is 59 and she is 51.

“I’m sure anybody who is healthy and eligible to adopt a child and couldn’t because of the age rule would be disappointed at least,” said Mr. Velong, who was 55 when the first child was adopted.

There is no question he is physically fit: he is the police chief of Temple Terrace.

“I’m still working the street,” Mr. Velong said, “and you have to be in good shape. In reality, today’s 60 was yesterday’s 40, and I don’t think that’s fully understood.”

A major reason that Chinese babies, most of them girls, are available for adoption is China’s two-decade-old population control measure known as the “one child policy.”

The C.C.A.A., which was known to be developing the new guidelines for months, refused a request in recent weeks for an interview on adoption policy, and yesterday a call to the Chinese Embassy in Washington was not returned. An unidentified official cited by The Associated Press confirmed that the government was adopting new guidelines but declined to discuss specifics.

Some of the guidelines are a culmination of what had been a previous tightening of criteria, agencies said. For the past few years, for example, to whittle down the applicant pool, China has limited the number of single parents allowed to adopt to 8 percent of the total, partly on the theory that if a single parent dies, the child has no other parent to turn to, agencies said.

The ease of China’s earlier standards was probably one reason for the deluge in applications, agencies said. But China is also popular because its system is well organized and efficient and because Chinese orphans are generally well cared for and have a good chance of being healthy when adopted.

Foreign parents have become a common sight in cities like Guangzhou or Changsha, where they usually travel in groups and stay in the local five-star hotel for a few days as they acclimate themselves to their new baby.

The quality of the Chinese system and the health of the children is what prompted Mindy and Michael Henderson of Austin to apply for a Chinese child this year, a girl, Grace, who they adopted last month. Under the new rules, Ms. Henderson, 33, would have been disqualified because she uses a wheelchair for a neuromuscular condition. As it was, she said, her adoption agency had to lobby hard to gain approval, and was successful only because Grace is 5, not an infant.

“It’s really a shame,“ Ms. Henderson said of the health-related restrictions. “I’m really, really active. I use a motorized wheelchair so I can get around by myself. I drive my own car, I’ve got a master’s degree and I work a full-time job in management. My husband doesn’t have any sort of a disability.”

Adoption agencies differed on who would be most affected by the restrictions. Ms. Terry said, “The body-mass index and the anxiety and depression are probably the two most significant blows. These are really common diagnoses here in America.”

Ms. Harrah said that the age limit would exclude a lot of eager applicants, and that the marriage requirement of five years for a second marriage would mean for many that “by the time they have been married for five years they will be over 50.”

Others lamented the singles exclusion.

“It’s a very sad day,” said Peggy Lee Scott, president of the Northern California chapter of Families With Children From China.

About 10 percent of the chapter’s families are headed by single parents.

“There always were a limited number of countries willing to adopt to single parents,” she said. “China was willing and recognized we could do a good job.”

Ms. Scott’s daughter, Abigail, concurred.

“Just because you don’t have another adult doesn’t mean you miss out on anything,” Abigail said. “In my opinion, having one parent is cool and makes you unique.”

Pam Belluck reported from Boston, and Jim Yardley from Beijing. Cindy Chang contributed reporting from Los Angeles, and Carolyn Marshall from San Francisco.

Correction: December 21, 2006


A picture caption yesterday with the continuation of a front-page article about plans by China to tighten rules on foreign adoptions referred incorrectly to Nancy Humphrey, a member of the Northern California chapter of Families With Children From China. She is coordinator of the chapter’s single mothers group, not coordinator of the chapter.


Correction: December 27, 2006


A front-page article last Wednesday about plans by China to tighten rules on foreign adoptions misstated the percentage of families in the Northern California chapter of Families With Children From China that are headed by single parents and attributed the figure erroneously. About 10 percent of the families are headed by a single parent, not a third. The erroneous figure was given by a member of a single mothers group, not by the chapter president, Peggy Lee Scott.

13 months and counting.

Today is our 13 month LID anniversary. I am really hoping we won't get beyond an 18 month anniversary. Right now I am predicting a referral in April or May...Tim, who is even more cautious than me, is predicting May or later.

Of course, none of these predictions mean anything!

We know it's happening, slowly. It's funny because when I look back on the last 13 months, in some ways they have gone by quickly. But on a day to day basis, those days go by so so so slowly...

Ho Ho Ho!

I am feeling rather festive! We got our Christmas tree this weekend, and I decorated it this morning. Almost all my Christmas cards are written out, although I do have to run for stamps. Most of the gift shopping is done. Not wrapped, but hey, I am getting there. Classes are over. I only need to give my final, grade the finals, and read a bijillion papers. But I am getting there.

Friday night we had a wonderful evening with Luca and hubs, Sparky and hubs, and Kikalee and hubs. Luca has received a referral for the lovely Leah, and Sparky and Kikalee are on the cusp of receiving referrals for their daughters. It's all pretty amazing. There's a lot of joy floating around right now. We played the Danish dice game, and we totally scored, walking away with some gorgeous candles (thanks Kikalee) and a hooded ducky towel set (thanks Luca)for Isabella. I am feeling a little bad for Kikalee and hubs, who walked away with nothing for the second time, but Tim is not. We also received a bottle of wine all decked out in a beautiful dress from Kikalee and hubby. If you want to see a few pics, check out Danielle's blog. I won't go into who Danielle is because it's a little too strange.

Another amazing thing is how much I genuinely like all three women and their husbands. A lot of adoptive couples expect to feel a connection with other adoptive couples simply because both couples have adopted. I have no such expectations. But these three couples...wow. I would want to hang with them even if we weren't adopting. I just adore them. And the hubbys...don't get me started on them. Sweet, smart, and sensitive. All three are cute too. Love the hubbys. Of course, not as much as I love Tim*, but adore them.

One complaint: these couples make me feel highly inadequate in the kitchen. They all cook amazing meals. Unbelievable. Of course, I get to eat them, so I suppose I can't complain too much. Still, I am now, like, AFRAID to cook for them!

Sparky, Tim and I immediately logged onto stirrings.com and ordered the chocolate martini mix. Expect to see me in either an obesity clinic or rehab clinic soon.

I leave you with a picture taken yesterday outside our home. I hate the picture of me...no makeup, really old nerd glasses on, etc. And what is up with my forehead? Why do I have such a huge forehead? Seriously, I could tatoo a map of China on it. But the dogs had just been groomed, and will only look this good for say, a day. Also, I am wearing what Tim has dubbed my "Rocky Balboa" outfit...a big thick black hoody under a suede fleece coat. So, I punched him about 10 times in the arm for good measure. I'm not beautiful, but I AM strong.

*Tim made me say this.

My favorite new citizen.

On Tuesday, my best friend of 22 years became a US citizen. Carla was born in the Azores, a group of islands off the coast of Portugual. Here she is, becoming a US citizen. Tim and I are most happy, and most proud of her.

Getting a new mom and dad at 12.

I've stumbled on an interesting blog...there's a couple in China now that has adopted a twleve year old girl they have named Lana. Check it out here.

Cheryl and Bruce's Mya.

Last night we laid our eyes on the first pictures of Mya, the daughter of our friends Cheryl and Bruce. How surreal that this woman that I first knew in high school is now holding her beautiful daughter from Hunan Province.

So much runs through my mind. The most touching thing about the photos is the delicate mix of emotions running across Cheryl's face in her very first picture with Mya. Cheryl, with her weepy eyes filled with utter happiness, and I think, relief. I think the sum total of her emotions is "At Last". She finally has her daughter, and Mya is lovely, healthy and seems to be doing just wonderfully. There are two adorable pictures of Mya banging her stacking cups around with glee. There are pictures of Bruce with his wife and daughter, looking like he has just been given the most amazing gift you can imagine. And he has.

I feel really privileged to have been able to see this couple go from meeting, to marrying, to their first meeting with adoption agencies, to setting up Mya's nursery, to their baby shower, and now this wonderful conclusion, which is itself another beginning. Congratulations to Cheryl, Bruce and Mya. You look marvelous together!!!

Owweee. Heart is hurting...

Today I am feeling bad. Like I cannot tolerate the wait one more instant. Like I want to sit down and cry for a good hour straight. Like I want to say to everyone around me "Don't bother me with your BS, because I've got a big gaping wound in my heart".

Maybe it's because yesterday was my departmental Christmas party, and there were little kids there. Last year, Tim and I thought that this year we'd be bringing Isabella to the departmental Christmas party. We were wrong.

Maybe it's because it's the end of the semester, and I am stressed and tired. And the students are stressed and tired.

Maybe it's my sense of impending doom about Christmas and how badly it's going to suck no matter how hard I try to pretend that it doesn't. There's that empty stocking, with "Isabella" embroidered on it hanging from the mantle once again this year.

On the bright side...I'm trying, folks...
Let's focus on the good!
Lisa S. has her Maisie. Cheryl and Bruce should have Mya in their arms as of now...they don't have a blog, so we are all waiting for email. Can I tell you something about Cheryl and Bruce? Too sweet for words. They've been so busy, preparing their home for Mya and for Christmas. They've been packing for China, wrestling with an extra two pounds of luggage they had to get rid of. They left on Thursday. On Saturday, Tim and I get a beautiful card in the mail about how they will be thinking about us and praying while in China that Isabella comes home soon. Wow. Incredibly thoughtful.

There are times when I've felt so alone with this wait. How many of you have had a biological mom tell you how LUCKY you are to miss the first several months of life, when the baby has colic and doesn't really do anything? What I want to say is "Would you give up those first eight, ten , twelve, fourteen months of her life? Would you? Would it be better to know that your baby was waiting in an orphanage somewhere, waiting to be matched to you, the waiting mom? What? Oh, you mean you wouldn't like that? You're happy you got to see your baby sit up, stand up, and maybe even walk for the first time?" Then get out of my face, before I punch yours in.

Anyway. What's that I wrote about focusing on the good? Yes, back to Cheryl and Bruce. Thank you Cheryl and Bruce for remembering us in the midst of your preparations, in the midst of your joy. We love you and we'll love your daughter. See you at the airport!!!

Why I really dislike the RQ roller coaster.

During Thanksgiving week both my pals Sparky (LID 9/14/2005)and Kikalee (LID 9/12/2005) were very hopeful that they were going to be in this latest batch of referrals. I read the most hopeful, excited posts. Then this week...well, guess what? We did not get "deep into September", CCAA did not do the entire month of September, and there was no "big surprise".

Now, the good news is that Sparky and Kikalee know they will be in the next batch.

But I hate all the rumors. Yes, I realize people have waited forever (we started the process in February 2005). Yes, I realize that referral day will be the most amazing day. Yes, I realize people are hungry for information. But for some reason, it makes me pissy that the RQ causes people's hopes to rise and fall within the course of a week. Obviously it's not the RQ's "fault" - people choose to follow her and then what she has to say spreads through the boards like gospel. I don't really know why this makes me so pissy. I just know it does.

Some people find it odd that I want to stay off the RQ. I hear all the time how I'll be hooked in a few months. I am not so sure. The same people that are hooked a few months before their referral are usually the same people that were hooked 6 months earlier. Am I cold? Detached? No, not really. I want my baby as much as the next waiting mom. I think about it all the time, and on a more basic level,I have a job where I have to plan months ahead (you might recall that I decided in late October to teach this spring semester, which ends in May...and there are no "subs" at the university level. Timing is critical to me, perhaps even more so than to the average waiting mom). So, yes, I certainly want to know when I am getting a referral. But I guess I don't think the RQ is really going to be able to tell me that. On a pragmatic level, I have a lot of work to do, so following each and every rumor really isn't feasible for me. And on an emotional level, I don't need the extra drama of having my hopes elevated and then dashed on a hour to hour, day to day, basis. I am completely capable of having dramatic swings in mood sans RQ.

Recently I commented that with an LID of 11/18/2005, I expect to travel in late spring or early summer. Some have suggested I am crazy...that there's no way our referral will take that long. Some have suggested that I am just protecting myself by predicting such a far away travel date. Maybe I am crazy, maybe I am protecting myself. But sometimes I just want to scream "DO THE MATH, PEOPLE". CCCA referred 12 days worth of LIDs at the beginning of November, and 10 days worth of LIDs this past week. October 2005 is a record month in terms of number of dossiers received. Call me Debbie Downer, but I will be completely thrilled if I am just able to see our referral before Mother's Day this year.