Latest Update and Matching

The rumor is still hanging out there that the cut-off for this next batch of referrals, due to arrive the first of November, is December 12, 2005. If this is fact, then that means we are included! Hard to believe after waiting so long.

Also, the word is out that matching has begun. What does this mean?

Info from the Rumor Queen on how matching works:

First, they review the baby dossiers and make sure there are no issues with them. We are told that they then count up all of the baby dossiers that are eligible for matching that month and then look to see how far this stack will go in the parent dossiers without sending out a partial day, and they pull all of those parent files. That is the likely cut-off date. Sometimes something happens and they don’t get this far. Sometimes something happens and they get farther.

Next they match orphanages up with agencies. When they are through with this is when some agencies start to get information about the cut-off date. Or at least it is when they used to start getting information.

And then they start matching individual babies to individual families. The various conversations seem to all agree that they first look for something that stands out: a matching birthday, a baby who looks a lot like a parent, or a baby who likes music and a parent who teaches music. Several matching people have stated they match by bone structure of the baby’s face and the parent’s faces (this is why they need our passport photos, so they can compare our mug shot with the baby’s mug shot). Some have stated that they used Chinese astrology, also. Once they’ve matched the obvious matches they then start to look at things like age of child requested. The age requested is not a priority for them.

Each matcher is assigned certain agencies and is responsible for communicating with their agencies. Some matchers tell their agency the cut-off date, some matchers tell their agency “you have X number of referrals arriving”, some matchers give their agency a list of that agency’s families that will be receiving a referral. And some matchers don’t say anything at all to their agencies.

So if we are indeed included in the cut-off that means right now a matcher is looking at our passport photos and sealing the fate of our family. Weird thought! Ultimately, I know that God's hand is orchestrating the entire event as I never could have imagined that we'd be where we are today, expecting an extraordinary gift from China (despite my horridly unattractive passport picture).