What is the Current Wait Time?

The current wait from LID to referral is 37-38 months at all agencies and increasing. This represents the wait time for families who just received a referral in April and who could potentially receive a referral next month. The wait time is calculated from the Log in Date when a dossier is sent to China, to the date that the referral is received. For families with LID dates after March 7, 2006, the wait time trend continues to increase half a month to a full month each month.

No one can accurately predict how long the China wait time will become or when it may start to decrease due to a large number of unknown factors, such as the following:

• the number of infants that will be available for adoption and paper ready within the upcoming year

• the number of domestic adoptions that will occur within China this year

• the number of families from around the world who have login dates between the last referral LID and today

• the number of families who will withdraw from the China adoption process due to the increased wait time

• the number of families who will adopt special needs children and will no longer have their dossier waiting in the non-special needs line

• the number of families who will switch programs during their process and no longer adopt from China

Families are encouraged to calculate their wait time as a projected estimation, knowing there is no way to predict the actual wait time for each family. The wait time changes as it is based on the number of LID’s from around the world and the number of referrals that are paper-ready each month.

America World will continue to report monthly wait time trends. Families should continue to anticipate a long wait for a healthy referral.