Home Study Visit...Check!!!

Home Study Visit…Check!!!

Today was a big day. Our social worker came to our house and did our home study visit. This is a HUGE milestone in our adoption journey. In case you aren’t familiar with what this is, a social worker comes to your house with a big long checklist of things you need to have in your home and makes sure your living environment is suitable to welcome a baby into. Some things on the list are: working fire alarms/carbon monoxide detectors, locked up medication, first aid kit, all cleaning supplies moved to a location that a child can’t reach, fire drill evacuation practiced, evacuation plan posted in the house, etc (the list is 2 pages long). The social worker also interviews the family and stays for a good portion of the day to watch your family in action. After the visit, they write a detailed report that decided if you are approved for adoption or not. A home study report is the foundation of an adoption. This is the cliff note version of what a home study visit is.

When our social worker arrived, she immediately complimented our flowers in our flowerpots (which I appreciated LOL), so we stood outside talking about flowers for a little bit. I would imagine that this is the equivalent of discussing the weather. Either way, I liked the compliment and it started some good conversation. We invited her in, had a little bit of small talk, and then jumped right in to the home study. We started out by giving her a tour of our house and showing her many items on the checklist. Once the tour was done, she met with all of us as a family for about 30 minutes. Then she asked Jacob if he would be okay to go play in his room while she talked to Ryan and I together. By this time, many of our nerves had subsided. We realized that this situation wasn’t nearly as intense as we thought it would be. She talked to Ryan and I for about 45 minutes and then asked to talk to me alone. We talked and I answered questions for a little while. Then, she met individually with Ryan and Jacob and they did the same. Conversation flowed easily with her and I was so thankful for that. I don’t think any of us felt nervous or put on the spot when talking to her. After she met with each of us, we came back together as a family. We filled out paperwork and signed a bunch of documents. Our social worker went on to tell us that she is only requiring us to have this one home visit. SO AWESOME! She said we should have our home study report within a couple of weeks (this can sometimes take a month or longer to get, so this was amazing news). Once we have our home study report and once our funding is in place, we can start applying to agencies to be matched! This portion is all happening a lot faster than we expected, which is wonderful.

There was a moment today when Ryan, Jacob, and I were sitting on the couch together and I was listening to them talk about our life and our family and I just couldn’t have been more proud of the two of them. Proud of their confidence, love, and devotion to our little family. It’s not everyday that we get to stop everything and reflect on what an amazing life we have. Today we got that chance. As the day winds down, my heart is full. We are one step closer to bringing our baby home.

Puzzle Update

Week 8

 $9,100

We are almost to our $10,000 goal

I promise to post pictures soon of our added puzzle pieces. This has been a very busy week. Pictures will be in the next update.

(if you would like to make a donation, click the “donate” button on the top right hand corner of our blog. If you would like to learn more about our fundraiser, see our March 30^th post “Adoption Announcement”)