What's wrong with this picture

We're plodding along with the adoption paperwork. It's a daunting task, but sooner or later we'll finish it all. We haven't completely made up our mind which country we want to adopt from. We started with China. Then the rules changed and we began to read about a long wait times for referrals. When you hear that the current wait for a referral is 14 months after the log in date, that only tells part of the story. The reason that the wait time for referrals is lengthening is that more people are getting in line, but the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) is sticking with the same number of referrals each month.


Why does that matter? Say that China is allowing for 1,000 foreign adoptions each month. If the wait time for a referral back in September, 2005 was six months, but today those who received their log in date (the term used to describe adoptive parents who have been accepted for adoptions in China) back in October, 2005 are just now receiving their referrals (approximately 15 months), that means that there were 15,000 people in the queue (more or less) back in October, 2005. The real question is how many applicants received their log in date between October 2005 and today (or the date in the future in which we will complete our dossier and submit it for approval). My guess is that it's more than 1000 per month. That means the wait could be much longer. We've considered Vietnam, but the cost is much higher there, and I'm hearing that Vietnam is becoming the new "go to" country in Asia because of some new regulations that are going into effect in China. Sigh. You would think that this decision would be easier.

Anyhow, we have a little bit of time before we commit to a country. In the mean time, Lacey and I went to the Boone County Sheriff's Department yesterday for our fingerprints. This is a necessary step in order to obtain our criminal background check. We showed up prepared, with our camera in hand. The officer was kind enough to let us take pictures to document the procedure. I thought that the funniest part of this little episode was the fact that I left my driver's license at the station (they have since mailed it back to me). That is, until I reviewed the pictures. Take a look at the picture below and see if you can tell me why we might have difficulty getting FBI clearance with these prints. I'm just thankful that we discovered the problem now. It probably will save us months of hassles.