Day 27 Update

I'm on day 27 of the 60 working day wait today. There's nothing really to report on Samantha today, but lots of things are going on in the adoption community with my agency.

Several families who sent their paperwork to Vietnam later than I did were told recently that they have not been matched with a child and that there will not be enough time for them to receive a referral before 9/1/08. This is very sad news for these families, and my heart goes out to them in this tough time.

On a positive note, five families have received travel approval in the last week and a half. I have been keeping track of the wait periods for the traveling families, and the average wait has been around 52 working days. So I'm about half way there if things are on the average track. I'm noticing, though, that the more recent approvals are coming in later than the 52 days and pulling the average up. Two of the five latest approvals were on day 64 and day 68. No one really knows what will happen, so we'll just have to wait and see. My referral came earlier than expected, so I'm hoping that's a great sign that Samantha's paperwork is in good order and will process easily.

Another family whose baby is living at Ba Vi with Samanta is traveling soon. We are all very excited for them and also hoping to see more new pictures of our children. Our orphanage group has started a list of waiting babies with photos attached so that if we are the ones to travel we can take pictures for the other waiting families. We're getting all our ducks in a row for the big travel approval. Of the dates on the orphange list so far, I could be one of the earlier travelers if things process in order somewhat.

Well that's about all of the news for now. I'll post more as I hear news.