Those Rumors.....

Hi my name is Jen and I am an addict. An addict of the Rumor Boards. I just cannot stay off the board. To the right of this message is a link to the Rumor Queen. The Rumor Queen is a mom adopting from China. I believe she has a late Sept 2005 lid. She uses her blog to track potential rumors from all over the world. It does give you a great perspective on the situation but also you always got to keep in mind that these are rumors. Right now the rumors aren't good. With us just getting logged in (hopefully this month) -- the wait could be over 2 years. Think August 2008. I know in the big picture we will still have a baby but it is hard when you want it to happen now or okay I'll even take a 12-14 month wait. Our I171h/797C expires in January 2008. This means we have to travel by October 2007 in order for us not have to redo it. I will talk about what that means in a minute. Back to rumors...

They are talking about imposing new restrictions on adoptive parents. The one that alarms me is the weight restriction. Both Bill and I are what I call "fluffy". One rumor is that neither parent can weigh more than 300 lbs. Well neither one of us do, so I really hope that if a restriction is put into place we are safe. Other rumors include 1) you have to own your house (mortgage okay) -- we are safe on that one, 2) make more than $50,000 -- we are also safe on that one. These new restrictions have been rumor'd for over year now. Nothing has come of it. The reasons for the restrictions would be to lower the amount of dossiers in China.

One of the reasons for the wait that is speculated is that there are too many dossiers compared to paper ready babies. Then there was a scandal in the Hunan province that people were arrested for baby trafficking. The Hunan province was a large province in which babies came from the Chinese government shut down the entire province to International Adoption. Hence, less babies being referred. There is also speculation that the Chinese Gov't issues a number. This number reflects how many babies they will allow to be adopted internationally. So too many dossiers logged in means they will far exceed this number. Again this is speculation, remember that this is China -- a communist nation -- I'm not sure anyone knows except China. And it is well within their right to control this. They grant us permission to adopt their beautiful children, that is a blessing. I'm hoping that this blessing is bestowed upon us. {tears are running down my eyes}. This is something I sooo want. I'm not sure how I will handle it if we never see this dream come true.

Back to the I171h/I797 c -- if we have to redo it. This is what it will mean.

1) We have to get refingerprinted by August 2007. Our fingerprints are only good for 15 months. We will probably have to get this done unless China really speeds up the process.

Cost - $875

2) Homestudy Update -

Cost per our agency - $200

One thing about have our agency be our home study agency as well is that I think that they can control things better in regards to pricing. I have heard this can cost other people as much as $2000

3) Physical Update

Cost - $40 for co pays. Hopefully that it is.

Total cost $1115

Why does the I171H/797C expire -- well according to the US gov't it is for the best interest for the child to make sure our circumstances haven't changed. With all the immigration stuff happening today, you would think our gov't would focus on different things than wasting time and money on this.

There is a new bill introduced into Congress to extend the the I171H for 2 years. We have already written our congressmen, our senators, head of the USCIS. There is a grass roots campaign among the adoption community to get this going. So we wait and see if it works. It is kind of exciting to be part of it. I hope it works.

Hi my name is Jen and I'm a Rumor Board addict so I'm off to the rumor boards....in case something has changed in the last 10 minutes.... :-)


Jen