If You Want To Catch A Fish You Have To Put Another Line In The Water.

In a previous post I had mentioned that Brock and I were waitlisted for WHFC's Taiwan program.
Seeing as how the past few days have been kinda boring around here.....the exception being Thirsty Thursdays @ Tom's......I thought I'd take this time to fill you guys in a bit more about the Taiwan program.

I don't think that the folks at WHFC wanted to make a huge deal about the new Taiwan program for specifically one reason - they'd get flooded with folks wanting to apply. Even more specifically they'd get flooded with people who are currently awaiting a referral from China. And as it turns out this is just what happened.
When it came to my attention that this was a new program available to us I jumped on it quick. It seems to me that the state of international adoption is sort of like a get-on-it-while-it's-hot-game these days.....even our social worker Jane commented on how adoption just ain't what it used to be ( predictable ).

I spoke with the folks running the Taiwan program , who are also the same people who run the China program, and asked them to send me the dossier requirements asap. I was like an Indy race car....full speed ahead when they slammed on the brakes for me. They were flooded with folks wanting to apply to the Taiwan program - so much so that they had to start a waitlist.

What was explained to me was that they are going to see how the first batch of referrals go from Taiwan before they send more files. Then they are going to approach the people who have asked to be placed on the waitlist who have been waiting on the China list the longest. Which sadly, is not us. However, I feel that we are sort of near the middle to upper-middle part of this list.

I think that the people who have somewhat imminent ( meaning within the next year ) referrals are not going to bother applying to the TWN program. If we had a LID of Jan - May of 2006 I wouldn't apply. I think this puts about about 10 months worth of folks ahead of us and 12 months + worth of people behind us.
So - who knows, keep your fingers crossed.

I should also mention that I work with someone from Taiwan who explained how babies / kids become available for adoption in Taiwan.

1. There is no gov't infrastructure for disabled people in TWN. Meaning that if a child is born in anyway disabled the parents have very little help in the way of early intervention programs or special schools. There is no DMR in Taiwan.

2. Along the lines of no gov't infrastructure...there is no agency to police abused children.
If a child is removed from the home there is no foster care.

3. As cosmopolitan as the Taiwanese people like to think they are they can go " old school " real quick. Meaning that there is a HUGE stigma attached to teenage pregnancy. Pregnant teenagers are strongly encouraged to make an adoption plan.

So there you have it. Taiwan in a nutshell.

I'll keep you posted.


XO
Bunny