How The Matching Process Works

Thought it might be of interest to post a little primer on how the matching process works in China. I picked up this info from another blogger (RQ) who is well-known among a lot of adoptive parents waiting for China. Keep in mind this is a bit of a guesstimation (FYI: "guesstimate" is in the dictionary) as they don't say EXACTLY how it's done...

First, the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) reviews the baby dossiers they've received from the orphanges at the end of each month and makes sure there are no issues with them. Parent dossiers were reviewed months before. Baby dossiers are reviewed when they arrive and then immediately matched.

So now they have a stack of baby dossiers. They look to see how far this stack will go without sending a partial day of log-in dates (LIDs) and they pull all of those files. Sometimes something happens and they aren't able to match all those LIDs. Sometimes something happens and they match more.

Next they match orphanages up with agencies so that parents from the same agency can travel together. (For example, this orphanage has six babies, this agency has six families. These two orphanages are in the same province and have a total of 12 babies, this agency has 12 families.)Then they start matching individual babies to individual families.

At some point during this part of the process, most agencies hear from their contact person in the CCAA matching room letting them know how many referrals they will be receiving and from what province(s). Some agencies share this information with their clients. Some choose not to. I'm pretty sure our agency shares this information with their clients, though in general, they are pretty tight-lipped. I would imagine they don't want to risk being wrong and causing undo heartache for parents who are already anxious and stressed.