Does anyone know anything about the process in which China matches children with families?

Question

Why is the wait so long. I guess things like religious philosophy do not matter do they, I'm a Buddhist.

Answer 1

It's a bit complicated. They take agency packets and attempt to match them with the number of children available at an orphanage. Say your agency has 10 families ready at the same time, they look for an orphanage or two near by the can meet that need. Then they look at family pictures and interests and match them that way. In our group, One couple got their girl because they had similar head shapes, one family got their girl because her infant picture looked like their American daughter's, except for the eyes. We got out daughter because we are musicians and she liked noisy toys and rattle drums. They do the best they can to find the child that fits your family. Since officially communism IS the religion in China, they don't care about your religion, even though 49% are Buddhist, 49% Taoists, 1% Muslim and 1% Christian.

Answer 2

One reason the wait is so long is because there are 2x as many families who want babies from China vs. babies available.

When they match, it is 7 people in a room who "match" the child. They usually match something like  birthdays or something. For  example if you were born july 8th, they may match you with a child with the same birthday or one who is born close to your birthday.  Like if you were a musician they may try to match you with a child who "sings" or if you hike, then they will try to match you with an active child.

Those 7 (or is it 8) peopla at CCAA care about the children and do the very best they can to match them up :)

Talk to your agency.

Answer 3

I heard that right now there is a partial moratorium on Chinese and Russian adoptions.  A lot of folks are in a holding pattern. Your adoption agency should have said something about it, if it is affected, I should think.  They are changing some of the rules (age limit, no single parent adoptions, etc.).  I don't know whether religion has any criteria. They are also trying to encourage more Chinese to adopt rather than sending their girls out of the country.

The US is also recommending a hold from certain provinces due to measles outbreaks.

Answer 4

The CCAA does a wonderful job of matching children on a number of levels. They look at the number of families in a given agencies "batch". Then they look at the children in the groups from orphanages. They match on everything from artists with children from Jiangxi because a lot of famous Chinese artists come from Jiangxi to the facial structure of the children. I believe they try to match the children based on the age and gender requested by the parents and then ultimately match based on the facial features of the adoptive parents.

My daughter looks like me except for the nose. She looks so much like me my aunts told my mom that baby even looks like Kim did when she was a baby. Friends in my local FCC swear they have never seen a child that looked more like her mother than mine. In China we watched some older folks doing Tai Chi. They came over afterwards and read the note card my guide had written in Chinese that explained that I am an American and have adopted this Chinese baby and I love her so much. The woman became very adament speaking in Chinese. I had no idea what she said. Another woman left for a minute and returned with a young girl about 13 oir 14 who spoke English. She translated for the woman. She said that she did not believe that child was adopted. She lookes just like me. She has your eyes, your mouth, your chin, your face shape but not your nose. One of my coworkers who did not know my daughter was adopted looked at her picture and said "Your daughter looks like you."

Another family in our travel group was matched with a baby who looked just like her older brother. She resembled her mother a little but she looked so much like her brother. There are a lot of families I know who you can tell who the CCAA matcher thought they resembled.

Another friend of mine swears she was matched with the child she was matched with because the little girl had her adoptive fathers widows peak. Truth be told the older this little girl gets the more her face shape matches her mothers.

I know it seems odd that they could match based on looks given the ethnic differences but for a vast majority of matches, you can definately see the resemblence to one of the parents.

Answer 5

I think it is just a bureaucratic process of matching pieces of paper in a pile. I don't believe there is much thought in the process. In the US now, most birthparents get to pick the adoptive parents for their baby. It is nothing like that since Chinese children are abandoned (you can't legally place your child for adoption in China). Adoptions to single women are being phased out in China. Also older couples cannot adopt a newborn. Other than that it is more or less waiting in line.