It finally feels like we are making headway in this process. We completed our first home study visit on January 14. Our social worker was wonderful and gave us great information and insight into the process of adopting from India. She made us feel very comfortable with the home tour as well. After about two hours of conversation and our social worker getting to know us and our kids a little better, she did her home tour. She walked through each room in our home. We introduced her to Bruce, our dog, as well. She also asked us if we had a plan or idea of what the living arrangements would be when we brought our new child home. We have thought through this and already made some changes to our kids’ bedroom set up. More changes will be made once we are matched and preparing for travel.
We did have one funny thing happen during our visit. I’ll start by saying that we were warned by other people who have gone through the home study process that things that can go wrong will. And also to not worry about what you can’t control. That said, part of the home tour is making sure your home is safe. As soon as our social worker sat down and began to talk, one of our smoke alarms gave off a loud chirp. Carl and I just looked at each other wide eyed. A minute later it chirped again. Somehow, in the exact moment that we began to have our first face to face conversation with our social worker, the battery in one of our smoke alarms decided to die to the degree that it had to begin chirping every minute on the minute. So, Carl had to go on the hunt to find which one was going off before we could proceed. After finding the rogue smoke alarm and removing the battery, Carl rejoined the social worker and me in the living room and we just had to look at each other and laugh.
Our psych evaluation also went well. It was very low key since no actual testing is required and it was more of a conversation than an evaluation. The Psychologist we saw actually knows several of the same people Carl knows and this made the conversation with him more relaxed. He was very interested in international adoption and will be a great resource for us if we have a situation that requires counseling once we bring our child home. We did end up having to bring Laelyn along with us for this visit. She was super content the entire time and was never a distraction for the hour long interview.
Thank you for your prayers and support as we continue on this journey.
Next steps:
- We both have to complete our autobiographies. These must be written in painstaking detail ensuring that you cover all of the questions that they give you to include. There were 5 pages worth of questions we had to incorporate!
- We are in the process of completing our HAGUE training course – it is a 10 hour online course
How you can pray for us:
- The autobiographies are lengthy and in-depth. Please pray for the ability to get it done quickly and accurately.
- Our second home study visit is scheduled for Thursday, January 31. This will be our individual interviews. We will each meet with our social worker for about an hour. Part of this meeting will be to discuss our autobiographies.
- Pray that we are able to complete our home study as quickly as possible. Our goal is to have it finished by March. This would be three months from start to finish.
A Full Table 