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 document called a T.A., or Travel Approval, but it generally turns up very quickly after you accept the referral.)

Referrals lately have been coming out of the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) once a month. Sometimes they process a whole month's worth of dossiers, sometimes two weeks, sometimes six weeks. You never know quite when your referral's going to arrive, which is enough to drive some people completely insane, salivating like hungry wolves over any scrap of information from China.

So, for those of you are currently paper-pregnant, there's word going around the boards supposedly from a rather conservative Norwegian agency (i.e., one not given to speculation) that the latest batch of referrals goes up to May 25 LID (Log-In Date, when the dossier is actually processed) and should be in the air soon. This is definitely friend-of-a-friend type information, so take it for what it's worth.

In my house (DTC May 5, LID May 23), we're pretty excited.