It is still looking like the cut off this month is going to be November 7th 2005, nothing is sure yet but that is where the rumors are staying. I normally wouldn’t post about a cut off until it is confirmed but I wanted to mention something.

November 2005 is one of the few confirmed data points that we have. The CCAA has said that there is 3000+ dossiers for November, normally we don’t get this info. Some discussion about quotas on the RQ forums got me thinking.

The thought is that there is a 10,000 per year quota on internationally adopted babies. I am using rounded numbers for this, November has 3000+ dossiers (or about 1/3 of 10,000) and it has been speculated for a while that November would take 4 months to get through. (1/3 of the year). So if this rumor of November 7th comes true and it does in fact take the CCAA 4 months to get through November then the math does appear to give argument to the fact that there is a hard quota. That along with some orphanages directors telling parents that they are only allowed to send so many dossiers up to CCAA.

The really sad thing about it is that there are thousands of people waiting to adopt a baby that sits in an orphange. Many of these babies may never get adopted because they will age out of the NSN program and be considered special needs (due to age). It is really sad and heartbreaking that due to politics these children will not find good homes; there are people waiting in heartache to bring them home. I know “face” to the Chinese is very important and I respect that part of their culture. I know they don’t want to “lose face” by the world thinking they can’t handle their own affairs and problems, but it still is very saddening.