Well folks, our home study went off without a hitch! PRAISE GOD! Tuesday through Thursday we were interviewed and our house was inspected. I must say, the home study was actually a lot less stressful than I thought. Here is a taste of what we did:
-measurements of the bedrooms, check for smoke detectors, safety checks on locked cleaning supplies, working fridge and water, first aid kit, etc
-Observations of the kids over dinner (very informally since they are so little).
-Interviews on EVERY subject, from our marriage, to our kids, parenting, discipline, our childhood, our past, our families, our faith, our education experiences, our dating relationship, etc.
-Discussions on how we feel about adoption, what led us here, what expectations and fears we have, what we have learned through our education thus far on adoption, how we feel about having a trans-racial family, etc
It was a lot, but luckily we have a great social worker who made us feel like we were just talking to a friend. We talked over cups of hot tea and lollipops (yes, I am 31 and I like lollipops). We really couldn't have asked for it to go any better.
Now that the interview and inspection part of the home study is done, the paperwork part won't be finished until around the end of June. Our social worker has to type up our entire home study and we have to complete and include the following items:
-FBI and state background checks and fingerprints
- Child abuse clearances from LA and TX
-10 hours of online Hague education
-Desired Child Form
-Read the book The Connected Child
-Complete Adoption Discussion Questions
-Attend a Crossings Seminar and complete a workbook
-Get complete physicals on Evan and I and the 3 kids
-Copies of Marriage Certificates, birth certificates, vaccine records, social security cards, pay stubs, tax returns.
- Trans-racial discussion questions
-Study up on the country of Ethiopia
So as you can see, it's back to paperwork for us....the never ending trail of paperwork! We are 2 1/2 months in and I know we have a loooong way to go, but the in home part of the home study is one more step complete. THANK YOU to everyone who prayed for us this week! We really felt them as we were totally at ease and peace and the process was GREAT!
This is a long and tedious process, but we are moving along. Please continue to pray as we keep working to finish all of our paperwork. Oh, and if you haven't downloaded and watched the Stuck documentary, I encourage you to do so. Evan and I watched it last week and it was really good and quite emotional, so have your kleenex ready and be prepared for God to lay some stuff on your heart....hey, I warned you! You can get to it from HERE.
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