Why is the wait so long?

I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be offensive. I keep reading that there are a lot of people giving up their children due to poverty or government policies resulting in crowded, underfunded, and understaffed orphanages, yet that doesn't line up with a 3+ year wait. I've read this for several countries that have a lot of extreme poverty, yet the wait time is long and there are few young children being adopted. I'm glad to hear that parents in China have the means to care for their children. You simply could have said that people are able to keep their children without being so derogatory. For the record, my livestock happen to be very happy, kind, well-adjusted kids.

This is beyond offensive. "Breeding"? " I can't imagine that a billion breeding people yield so few babies..." People "yielding" babies?If you want to know the answer, why not google the topic, and read up on it.

I'm sorry you couldn't see how offensive you sounded. By the way, don't you think it is extremelysad that people feel they have to give up their children due to poverty and/or government policies? I do.

Isn't it though? I just adopted a little girl from China....she is amazing, but her parents could not keep her due to government policies. I can't imagine how painful this was for them. Adoption is bitter sweet. I am blessed to have her in my life....but she shouldn't be here with me. She wasn't bred...she was born and loved, and deserved to grow up in a family rather than an institution in an industrial neighborhood. Based on the note found with her, her parents very much wanted to keep and raise her. The families currently receiving referrals for children in the non special needs program have waited a little over 5 years. The wait could continue to grow. China is in charge of China's children and it isn't red tape as much as it is they just get to do what they want. There are still thousands of children leaving China every year. China is also encouraging people to adopt children who have special needs...that program continues to grow. There are literally more than a thousand children currently waiting on the special needs list. These are the children in the greatest need. People with disabilities often do not have a place in Chinese culture....and many of these disabilities would be a minor speed bump here in the US. Not to encourage a "savior" mentality...but I do believe that adoption does also need to be about the needs of children. The current need of Chinese children is to find families for those with disabilities on the SN shared list. This is the list of children with special needs that are immediately and currently available for adoption. I found my daughter on the shared list. The needs vary...but as the children move to the bottom of the list their chances for a family lessen as it typically means their needs are greater. Again...even some of the needs located near the bottom are manageable with the health care and education available in the US. Many of those children raised here would grow up to have a pretty normal life....and the same could not be said for their life in China especially after spending their entire childhood in an orphanage with no family. My daughter was towards the bottom. This means that many many families passed her by probably deciding that her listed needs were too great for them. And she is a light in my life. She is pretty typical currently and I can not see why she would not live a completely normal and healthy life. She has a few very minor issues that I can't see ever standing in her way. If you are truly interested in adoption...I urge you (or anyone else reading this thread who feels the same) to stick around and read a ton. There are many knowledgeable people on this forum. I have never met such a wonderful group of ladies. :) I would encourage you to not only spend time on the adoption board, but also the birth parent and adoptee forums. In my many years on this board, I can not believe how much I have learned from all of them. All sides of the triad bring a truly different perspective to adoption that I believe has made me a better parent. I have been asked tough questions and been made to think about my opinions and beliefs. I have learned to PC my language up a bit, and learned to relax my PCness in other areas. lol.

I am not a China adoptive mom but an adoptive mom who does read the boards sometimes. I was honestly wondering the same thing as the original poster. Years ago there were plenty of special and non special needs available for adoption. It seems odd to me how the wait for a child went from a relatively short time to an approximately five year wait. And I think that is mostly for special needs kids. Honestly it wouldnt surprise me if there is more than meets the eye. In the intl. adoption world many countries try to curtail intl. adoptions because it looks bad that they are sending away their children to "wealthier nations" Even though I think China is still under communist rule they have become much more of a superpower in recent years. It wouldnt surprise me if the Chinese govt. doesnt want the image of sending away their children to be raised elsewhere to reflect badly upon them. This is my personal honest belief, especially as the poster said, in a country of 1 billion plus people Amy K, NJ

Jmom, I was offended by the OP terminology but will answer your post. There are always consequences to actions. Right now China is facing those consequences in the coming decades. A quick google search confirms that. [URL="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html"]https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html[/URL] Age structure:　0-14 years: 17.6% (male 126,634,384/female 108,463,142) 15-64 years: 73.6% (male 505,326,577/female 477,953,883) 65 years and over: 8.9% (male 56,823,028/female 61,517,001) (2011 est.) Age 15-64 - see article further down on the 30+ MILLION (pop of Canada or 10% of the US for comparison) males who cannot find wives due to the gender imblance who are considered (if you read the article) barren branches... China's Birth rate: 12.29 births/1,000 population (2011 est.)country comparison to the world: Ranked 159 The US has 13.83 births/1,000 population (2011 est.) [URL="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/chinas-onechild-policy-is-crippling-industry-09082011.html"]http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/chinas-onechild-policy-is-crippling-industry-09082011.html[/URL] United Nations projections show that the country is at a tipping point: The number of 15- to 24-year-olds is set to fall by 62 million people—or more than 27 percent—to 164 million people, in the 15 years through 2025. [URL="http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/08/29/huntsman_china_s_one_child_policy_causes_instability_and_sex_trafficking"]http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/08/29/huntsman_china_s_one_child_policy_causes_instability_and_sex_trafficking[/URL] "Abnormally high sex ratio at birth and excess female child mortality both contribute directly to the sex ratio imbalance in China," Huntsman wrote. "Social consequences of this imbalance include an estimated excess of over 30 million unmarriageable males, a potentially destabilizing force that threatens to cause unrest in the most economically marginalized areas, and could lead to increased gender violence through demand for prostitution and trafficking in girls and women." [URL="http://www.economist.com/node/16846390"]http://www.economist.com/node/16846390[/URL] In many other areas, something more like a two-child policy has been emerging. Rural residents are usually allowed to have a second if the first is a girl (typically after a gap of four years). Ethnic minorities can have more. Many places have started allowing parents who themselves lack siblings to have two offspring. A senior family-planning official said in 2007 that in effect the one-child policy applied to less than 40% of the population. [URL="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/25/china-one-child-policy-benefits-rules"]http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/25/china-one-child-policy-benefits-rules[/URL] discusses how the one child policy is being relaxed or fines paid or those who fall outside of the one-child policy - i.e. parents without siblings, minorities, rural families. Another current article I don't have the link to speaks to how the labor pool is shrinking and the wages are increasing because of the shortage - it doesn't take a lot of consideration to see how that increase in wages allows families to afford the fines. Kind regards,Dickons

Hi Dickons, Thanks for all that data. Must have taken a long time to write your post. I was not aware of a lot of that information. Have a good weekend. Amy K, NJ

The wait for a special needs adoption in China can be non-existent. There are 1600+ children available for adoption on the SN list, right now. Many of those children can be matched with a family who has zero paperwork completed. We completed an adoption of a very young boy with cleft lip/palate in 9 months. Started our home study in January 2010 and traveled to get our son in September 2010. China is putting more emphasis on their SN program and opened back up to single women who are willing to adopt a SN child, allowing families to adopt more than one unrelated children at a time, and allowing families to re-use their dossier if they submit official interest in a child within one year of bringing home the first adopted child. The wait for SN child is NOT 5 years as one post above seemed to allude.

Hello Karla-K,This is my first time on this adoption forum. I have been reading the messages and thisis just what my husband and I need right now.We are in the process of adopting a Special Needs boy with cleft palate and club feet- he's 2yrs and4 months. We signed the contract with our placement agency in March 2011. We got the Homestudy approval in Sept. 2011 and USCIS approval in Dec. and sent the dossier for federal authentication on Dec. 20th, 2011. If our child is in an orphanage in China, how long can we expect to wait for the dossier to be approvedby CCCWA?By the way, it's been 9 months since we signedthe contract and we have received NO MEDICALUPDATES. Sincerely,MAGI2012

Hi Dickons,Thank you so much for posting thisvaluable information on the ChinaPopulation problem. It must havetaken alot of time on your partand it is much appreciated.MAGI2012

thanks:gnome:

I'm just starting to research China's special needs children now that they have opened up to single moms. How does one get access to the shared list? Will an agency let you look at the whole list?

The female mortality rate might be skewed by abandoning the girl, and then claiming that the child died at birth, or possibly smothering the female baby at birth as has gone on in China for centuries past. I tend to think that there are still a lot of NSN girls in the orphanages, and I have heard talk that there are orphanages not open to the public or IA, which house NSN children to be raised within China. When IA started, the process was very much streamline, and most PAPs wanted NSN AYAP children. The process was so successful that it left a lot of SN children to be raised by the orphanages. So, it makes sense that China would slow down the process for adopting NSN girls to such a slow pace but open the doors for SN and now an even stronger push for SF (Special Focus) children, making SN children the "new NSN", but with the speed of what we used to know as the actual NSN wait time. There really is no evidence that there are less NSN babies/toddlers in government care. All we have is the visuals of orphanages void of NSN children. But, then, a lot of children are now part of the orphanage but in foster care...And so it looks as if there are less NSN children. China has a pandoras box on its hands. If it were to truly lift the One Child Policy, we would see a baby boom much like what happened in the US after WW2. And that would undo everything it has done over the past two decades with the One Child Policy. So, it's my belief that China is raising the NSN girls via orphanages and foster care still, to help offset the gender imbalance in the future. And doing it under the guise that there are less abandoned children. I do not believe that is the case.

I don't know if you discussed this above, but relative to the first decade after the there are likely fewer non-SN girls girls being born and relinquished. First due to ultra sound and sex-selective abortions. Second due to more affluent urban families parenting their non SN girls.

True. I believe there are less available NSN girls than when we adopted our first daughter, but not nearly as few as the Chinese government lets on. There's still a fairly large gender gap, and the government needs to find a way to alleviate that. Also, although it does happen, it is illegal for a doctor to tell the parents the sex during an ultrasound, and also illegal for sex-selective abortions. So, I don't see that as something readily used, but rather used in secrecy. When we adopted our first NSN daughter from China, during our wait it went from 6 months to a 9 month wait, and it went up quickly to where now, 6 years later, it's about 2 months of LIDs for every year that goes by. I don't see how it is possible for the rate of change to happen in such drastic measures so quickly. Not in a country where despite it's up and coming economy, change is slow, and people have a respectful fear of their government.