Why is it taking so long to get Makayla

Several people has asked me why it is taking so long to get Makayla. We'll there are several reasons we were told. When we first started the adoption process in 2005, we started paperwork to go through the Russia program, then changed to the China program. We started the paperwork and background checks . Our paperwork was sent over to China on Feb 24, 2006. Our time line ( or waiting period) starts from the day the China logs us in which was March 22, 2006. When we first started the program the waiting period for a referral ( a child that China picks out for us) was approx 7 months and then we would travel to pick her up and finalize the adoption was approx. two months later, which would of given us a referral in Dec 2006 and travel time of Feb 2007. After our paperwork was logged in we were told that the referrals were taking about 9 months and travel 2 months later. Then in September 2006 we were told that the wait was getting to be 12 months for a Referral. Now it is 15-16 months for a referral, why the longer referral time you ask?????
We have been told there are several reasons for the longer wait. This is not all from our adoption agency but several different online groups and adoption related information web sites. One reason is they did an investigation into the China adoptions for black market babies. People selling babies to orphanages for money. The investigation was found to be false and that it delayed the referral of babies during the investigation. However I don't know how reliable this rumor is. Then we heard that in 2005 there were twice as many people applied for a child then in 2004 and there were not enough paper ready children available to keep up with the demand. I can say that this rumor has been said several times so I can not help but believe it. Then there was a rumor that China was in the process of implementing new rules for adopting children and that this also a reason for delayed referrals. China did release in Dec 2006 new rules for adopting children, but because our paperwork was already in China before the rule change that Don and I are grandfathered into the old rules. So the rumor about the referrals being delayed because of the new rules may or may not be true.
Once you are logged into China you get a date which ours is March 22, 2006. Everyone gets a log in date and referrals come to first come first serve basics. So everyone that has a log in date before us will receive a referral before us. When I speak of a referral I am talking about a child that China picks out for us. The referral contains pictures and background information if any on a child along with updates on weight, size, age and medical background if any.
In 2003 and 2004 referrals came once a month and there was enough referrals to get though a month of log in dates. starting in late 2005 referrals still came once a month but they were only giving out referrals for approx. 2 weeks of log in dates at a time. So they were taking two months of referrals to get through one month of log in dates. Currently as of 7/06/07 they have given out referrals through Nov 14th 2005. We were logged into China on March 22, 2006. So we still have 4 months of referrals before we get ours. If they stay at the same pace as they were in 2006, we are still looking at 9 more months before we get a referral. However there is rumors out there that are saying that the amount of people logged in to China starts to decline in late November 2005 through Feb 2006, so they might speed up and get more than two weeks of Referrals in each month. Only time will tell. If China goes back to giving referrals out for a whole month we are only looking at only 5 more months to a referral. If you have any questions about this please post a message. If you would a update on where China is on referrals please read the post Referrals on the main website page. Plus there is also a post for my predictions on referrals.