Thursday, July 16, 2009

How the Matching Process Works

In case anyone is interested, this is how the matching process works as explained by the Rumor Queen:

First, they review the baby dossiers and make sure there are no issues with them. We are told that they then count up all of the baby dossiers that are eligible for matching that month and then look to see how far this stack will go in the parent dossiers without sending out a partial day, and they pull all of those parent files. That is the likely cut-off date. Sometimes something happens and they donĂ¢€™t get this far. Sometimes something happens and they get farther.

Next they match orphanages up with agencies. 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. When they are through with this is when (I believe) some agencies start to get information about the cut-off date. Or at least it is when they used to start getting information.

And then they start matching individual babies to individual families. At some point during this part of the process most agencies used to hear from their person in the matching room to let them know how many referrals they will be receiving and from what province(s). Some agencies shared this information with their clients. Some chose not to. Recently I’ve gotten the feeling that many agencies are still getting this information but they are being given orders by the CCAA to not share this information with the families.

Just as in the review room, each matcher is assigned certain agencies and is responsible for communicating with their agencies. Some matchers tell their agency the cut-off date, some matchers tell their agency “you have X number of referrals arriving”, some matchers give their agency a list of that agency’s families that will be receiving a referral. And some matchers don’t say anything at all to their agencies.

The next question that comes up is generally how the matchers match families and babies. I’ve heard from several people who have had the opportunity to speak with someone who works in the matching room. The various conversations seem to all agree that they first look for something that stands out: a matching birthday, a baby who looks a lot like a parent, or a baby who likes music and a parent who teaches music. Several matching people have stated they match by bone structure of the baby’s face and the parent’s faces (this is why they need our passport photos, so they can compare our mug shot with the baby’s mug shot). Some have stated that they used Chinese astrology, also. Once they’ve matched the obvious matches they then start to look at things like age of child requested. The age requested is not a priority for them, they feel they are matching families and not filling orders.


Someday, our little girl will be matched with us and I can't help but wonder what will be the matching factors......only God knows=)

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Happy Birthday Mom

Today is my Mom's birthday....it would have been her 76th but I prefer to look at it like it is her 2nd birthday in heaven. She was the best Mom you could ever ask for. She was a warm, caring women...soft spoken unless you made her mad and then she didn't speak at all. (I do that too when I get mad and then it makes me think of my mom and how much I am like her) She was a strong christian woman who loved Jesus...her actions and her words told us that. She was a brave women when it came to the end...she was ready when she was called home. On this day especially, I miss her so much. I miss our phone conversations, I miss her rolling her eyes at something Dad said, I miss the way she would walk us to our car when we went to see her and how she would keep talking as if she didn't want us to go. I could say that I miss her brownies but my Dad has taken on the roll as the brownie baker. I will never forget the batch of brownies she made for us (or should I say made for Tony...she never really made them unless she knew Tony was coming to visit) and the shelf in her oven was cockeyed. Her brownies came out fat on one end and skinny on the other! They were still good! Oh, I do have great memories of my Mom! Happy Birthday Mom...I love you soooo much!