One of the things I like about adopting from China is that it's a bit like a biological pregnancy, inasmuch as it takes longer than you want it to and you're sort of surprised at how the baby turns out -- and, quite often, at how well the child matches your family. It's like genes, only, well, not.

This isn't an accident. The CCAA has a matching room, a much-fabled chamber where each individual child is matched with a waiting family.

There are a lot of rumors about the matching room in the adoption community. It's where the magic happens.

I kind of prefer the version of the story where there's this room deep in the CCAA where they keep a staff of old... more

OK, for those of you not used to the paperchase part of the Chinese adoption process, it gets kind of crazy -- especially if you're net savvy. There are thousands of internet groups dedicated to the wait. Currently, it takes just about a year (give or take a month or two) between the time you're DTC (Dossier To China -- all your paperwork is sent off) and the time you receive a referral (the packet from China with the baby photographs, saying This one is yours -- if you've got a problem with that, now's the time to back out. If you haven't got a problem with that, see you in a month and a half. More or less.)

(Technically, the "month and a half" thing is a separate... more